Manhattan Bagels: full of steam

Manhattan Bagels has more than 65 locations nation wide- the one place they’re not welcome? Manhattan. And that’s because New Yorkers can smell their own.

Manhattan Bagels is from Jersey, which, despite its proximity is about as far from Empire living as you can get. And you know what that means, their co-companies Noah’s and Einstein’s aren’t turning out bagels made by the razor-witted Jews you were promised either. Chances are they’re baked fresh by twenty-something hockey fans who drive minivans on purpose.

What gives? If they’re so filled with Manhattan-y, urban goodness, how come the city folks don’t eat them? Because the only flavor sourer than piss-scented summers is counterfeit dough. Real New Yorkers are eating bagels made by the grumpy dude down the street that would no sooner sell his business into franchise than root for the Sox.

So since authenticity isn’t a scalable business model, Manhattan Bagels took the route paved by many who came before: they lied. Everyone knows everyone loves things from other places. The problem? Good things stay put. Seeing ‘Chicago Pizza’ or ‘New York Steak’ on a storefront in Tulsa should be your first clue to keep driving.

The great places don’t need their name to tell you they’re great, they’re thriving through reputation. In Middle America you stand better chances with a condemned-looking roadhouse named Leon’s where your waitress is smoking out front. They’ve probably got the best Reuben around.

Places like Manhattan Bagels are inherently underwhelming because their entire company is founded on an experience they can’t deliver. Walk into any one of their shops and what do you see? Stainless bins and robotic servers smiling at you from under visors. No wonder they’re too afraid to open one in Manhattan. Smiles and visors? No self-respecting New Yorker would even go in. It’s like those shoddy California-style surf shacks peppering the south of France, hard-pressed to lure even the most homesick of travelers.

So if you’re from a place that no one wants to visit, notable only by its unlikeness to places like New York, you can probably get away with such shameless sobriquets. Who’s gonna know?

But you’ll know. And chances are, the schemers behind Manhattan Bagels named them that after that one impossibly perfect, crunchy-on-the-outside-soft-in-the-middle legit NY bagel they had the happy fortune to come across, but that doesn’t make it OK.