SF Bay Area Bagels

[There are a bunch of SF bagel posts floating around but I couldn’t find one for Daily Driver and figured it would be easier to have an SF Bay Area bagel rundown in one place]

Daily Driver on 3rd Street in SF, near the Museum of Craft and design. Bagels are hand rolled, boiled and baked in wood oven. They also make their own butter and cream cheese but I just got a dozen bagels to go. Bagels are $3.50 a pop, but $30 a dozen, bringing them down to $2.50, but they’re having a $25% off on take out items sale through 11.30.20, so my dozen was $27. Nice blister on the crust, chewy and dense. Bigger than Beauty Bagels, but not as big as a giant NY bagel. I smeared some smoked whitefish salad on my everything bagel and it did not require toasting. I thought theses were really good.

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Walked by the new Daily Driver Bagel shop in the SF Ferry Building. Will have to try some soon.

Beauty Bagels in Oakland is my go-to place. Daily Driver is good but expensive, and so is Boychik Bagels in Berkeley. Over $3/bagel without anything on it is a bit much, even for the Bay Area.

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I like Beauty a lot, but since they merged with Wise Sons they stopped making them in a wood oven. Have you been since the merger, I’m curious if they are still good (or how they have changed)?

I’ve heard great things about Beauty. But anything must be a step up from Noah’s, which is where my transplanted SF friend used to take me in desperation for breakfast like 15 years ago when I used to visit, knowing they were gawd-awful but having no alternative.

Yeah other than House of Bagels, the pickings were pretty slim 15 years ago in SF. Things have been up and down since then, but the options have improved.
I don’t even know what to call those things Noahs serves, they’re bagel in shape only, and barely at that.

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Saul’s deli in Berkeley is baking bagels throughout the day now. They are very good.

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I like Daily Driver too, and a few Saturdays ago I noticed that nearby Neighbor Bakehouse now has bagels! Folks in the area should check out the new Crane Cove Park.

Our kids will eat Wise Sons and Beauty’s house cream cheeses, but not DD’s—- it’s not industrial-spreadable, more on the crumbly side.

The holes seem to be larger, but I can’t tell a difference in taste.

When I lived in San Jose, Main Street Bagels (which is I think a mini-chain) near my place had decent bagels.

I agree - they are really good, but kind of expensive. I love Saul’s, but living in Marin, we don’t get over there too often. My daughter had her first pickles there when she was six months old, so it will always have a place in my heart. My late father, who lived nearly, would get into arguments with the servers about the pastrami. He thought it was too lean.

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That’s a great tip I had no idea they made bagels and I love their pastries. Their menu says bagels are Saturday only - hopefully someone will get a chance to grab some and report back.

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The Bagel Mill, Petaluma, CA.

They say they mill their own flour and use a sourdough starter for their bagels. My everything bagel with lox, cream cheese, capers and onion had excellent flavor, but did not have that blistered exterior that really good bagels have. The website says they boil them before baking, but the texture just isn’t there, not sure what the problem is. Flavor was great though, so I would go back.



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And in Berkeley, suddenly famous Boychik Bagels is expanding into a site in the Gilman district.

“Suddenly famous” because a NY Times article over the summer put them into the national spotlight. They couldn’t keep up with orders after that.

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I still haven’t had a chance to try them - why don’t they expand to SF!

I haven’t tried them either. College Avenue might as well be in San Francisco–I go to the city more often.

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The article says they’re considering expanding into SF in the future.

The new bottle shop in the Castro Valley Marketplace, Cordial, serves coffee and Boychik bagels on weekend. It wasn’t bad, but it still didn’t have that good crust that the best NY bagels have. And I still think $3.00 for a bagel with no toppings or anything is a bit much, even for the Bay Area.

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Ah thanks. I still want to try Chicken Dog Bagels, started by one of the Pizza Hacker guys. Looks like they are doing a pop up at Pi Bar this Saturday.

https://chickendogbagels.square.site

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Bagels are best enjoyed just after cooling, so any attempt to serve them offsite or several hours after baking, or reheated, is gonna lead to disappointment.

Being a bagel seller has got to be heartbreaking – – lots of work to perfect a recipe and have it taste great in the kitchen, but less so by customers.

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They sell Boichik frozen at Monterey market and I think maybe at Berkeley Bowl too. I am originally from NY and very picky about bagels and hate most California bagels. Boichik are pretty good. They have good chew and a satisfying malty flavor. We’ve been serving them this summer with smoked salmon from the fish market near the Monterey market, Nancy’s cream cheese and early girl tomatoes.

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