Chapter five: These are your grandpa’s bagels

While he’s from Florida, where he grew up on Way Beyond Bagels, Liporace’s originally from Jersey and would visit his grandfather, whom he called Pop, and go to H&H Bagels, where he picked up on the intangibles of how the Empire State takes their rolls with holes. From the moment you walk in, Liporace remarks how he is immediately hit with the sights and smells coupled with that, “long deli case where you’re pointing at what you want versus telling,” touting it as, “the central New York experience.” Once inside, it’s time to order. According to Liporace, the service is fast paced and chock-full of attitude at the front. Bagel in hand, there is a noticeable twist to each of them because of how they are rolled, along with a decadent size and heft, the bagel shop owner notes. Bite one down, Liporace equates a maltiness with the bagel’s jaw workout of a chew, subtle sweetness and glossy, brown crust, a facet he wanted to replicate with Pop’s.

Fun Fact: H&H Bagels is where Kramer worked in Season 9, Episode 10 of “Seinfeld” title “The Strike.” This shop was also cited as an inspiration for the owner of Mustard’s Bagels, whom you will read about in next week’s installment!

While I personally am subject to the pitfalls of romanticizing bagels localized in Manhattan at institutions like Russ and Daughters, Liporace, having been brought up around them, knows the real New York breakfast sandwich isn’t without its flaws. On ordering in The City, he remembers the rat race it takes to jot down your order: 

“You go up to a guy, you tell him what you want, he writes… with a Sharpie on a little pad and then he hands it to someone who types it into a register.” So Liporace’s took out the inefficiency, but another aspect that, unfortunately, couldn’t cross the continent was the deli case or ability to bake on site, LA rent prices being what they are. With a pivot to a commissary model that drops off bagels three to four times a day, Pop’s Bagels further adapted to the California lifestyle through the addition of SoCal staples like avocado, noting that “you don’t see avocado in New York,” Liporace said. 

One time at Absolute Bagels in Harlem, he told me his wife asked for a cucumber and the man behind the counter “looked at her like she was insane.” While he got a subtle chuckle out of the culture shock, he wanted to drop some of that attitude out here in LA, offer cucumbers as well as another no-go of the New York bagel code, that being the toasted or non-toasted debate. Further coastal divides are with his serving a “psycho soft” bagel, whose pillowy interior eats better for families picking up a baker’s dozen to enjoy throughout the week. Despite these shifts from that hard-boiled, grab-and-go Empire State of mind, just like with Western Bagel, Liporace went about curating a unique bagel experience to fit their West Coast homestead — but some things never change and the classics are just that for a reason. Liporace, who also cites scallion cream cheese, capers, lox and red onion as one of his prepared sandwich preparations, though he also enjoys a good toasted sesame bagel or tuna salad-topped roll, told me that, “people still want that kind of warm hug of the classics.”

His craziest menu additions, other than allowing his wife to have cucumber on her bagel, is Pop’s Chili Crisp menu, which just adds a bump of the spicy condiment to the sandwich and the jalapeño cheddar bagel, which “flies off the shelves.” Liporace brought up his encounter with a banana-nut bagel and how it “just barely tastes like banana,” equating it to a fun novelty that never gets as popular as a lox bagel. This holds true even outside the U.S. when Pop’s did a pop-up in Paris, where it showed Liporace the reach bagels truly have. 

“I think grab and go breakfast items, especially cheap ones, are tough to find,” Liporace said. “And I think offering a really great bread and cheese and ‘on the go bagel situation,‘ is culturally very relevant.”

Bagels are a Jewish soul food, a comforting meal that reminds you of home. Growing up in a culture where every Saturday and Sunday was bagel time, Liporace said he has loved seeing people all over the globe come together over a shared affection for a freshly baked good. In speaking with his customers, even they remark on the important role this roll possesses. 

“The bagel you grew up eating is the bagel that you want the rest of your life and it’s a strangely personal item,” Liporace said. “I don’t know if other things are like that in the world.” 

But this affection doesn’t stop there as Liporace notices the bagel’s growing popularity outside of the Jewish community:

“What’s beautiful is, it’s not just for Jews. I feel like growing up, it did kind of seem that way. Like, ‘Jewish people eat bagels and lox,’ But everyone’s eating bagels and lox now. It’s so awesome. It’s really the only Jewish food that everyone loves — maybe matzaball soups, even latkas. Otherwise, people make fun of Jewish cuisine and it’s nice to have one that’s legit and could travel worldwide.”