Welcome to It’s A Shanda, one Northeastern Jew’s quest to find a decent bagel in Seattle (and beyond). Along with free bagel reviews every Sunday-ish, we also offer weekly bonus posts. If you’re already subscribed, I hope you’ll consider upgrading to a paid subscription! Thank you for reading. Follow me on IG, Bluesky, and TikTok for more bagel content, too.
In April, Hey Bagel took home the “Best Bagel” award at BagelFest West, throwing its name in the hat as one of the top bagel shops in the nation and bringing Seattle with it. Now, Andrew Rubinstein’s bagel biz is heading East to compete for the big crown.
The lineup for BagelFest 2026 was announced on Monday, and Hey Bagel was the lone Washington State participant included amongst the 25 or so bagel shops competing.
Hey has its work cut out for it as they’ll be going head-to-head with some heavy hitters, including defending BagelFest champion Starship Bagel, New York staples Utopia Bagels (my personal winner from last year) and Ess-a-Bagel, Kingston’s Fantzye Bagels (last year’s runner-up), New Haven’s Olmo Bagels, Atlanta’s Emerald City Bagels, Montreal’s St-Viateur Bagel and more.
It all goes down Sunday, November 15, between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. at Citi Field in Queens.
After two Seattle-area bagel shops attended last year (Backyard Bagels, B’s Butters & Bagels), I was hoping we’d see multiple attendees from the region again. But I know it’s a schlep, and there’s only so much room in the lineup. Per Bagelfest, they received over 100 applications and had an acceptance rate of just under 9%.
For the second straight year, I’ll be there as well. No spoilers yet on what I might be doing there, but I plan on prepping my stomach for a day of carb-loading the likes of which few have ever seen. If that sounds interesting to you, just know tickets go on sale Tuesday, September 8.
More to come on the BagelFest front, but I’m excited to see Hey Bagel go for gold, and looking forward to seeing what crazy cream cheese-d concoctions everyone comes up with this year. See you there?
Thanks for actually reading this far. If you enjoyed my bagel review and want to read more of them, make sure you’re subscribed to It’s A Shanda. Know someone in the Greater Seattle Area (or beyond) who would appreciate way-too-detailed reviews of local bagels? Please forward the link their way.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.