Coming from an out-of-state background, I was beaming with excitement to experience hyped-up California cuisine. Now as a connoisseur of Californian culinary arts, I will be the first to admit that the food in California is superior to the majority of the United States. Who doesn’t love a midnight Tacos Los Cholos run, a warm and cozy bowl of ramen from Hironori or some delectable fesenjoon from Irvine Grill? California has it all.
Except for the bagels. Bagels are the only food item in California that is worse off in all categories. For context, I grew up in New Jersey, which has a firm cultural rivalry with New York. However, a rare moment of solidarity between the two regions is built on our bagels. All of the mouth-watering, cheesy, gooey and beautiful bagels that you see on your TikTok For You Page originally came from New York or New Jersey. This also means my bagel knowledge is superb.
My frustration with California bagels starts before I even get my hands on my order. Starting with the price, a bagel in New Jersey would cost $4.50, while the same bagel order in California costs $9.35. The California bagel is also half the size of the New Jersey bagel. If I wanted bagel bites, I would’ve gone to the grocery store instead.
Now we get to the toppings. Any of my fellow greater New York area transplants would know how frustrating it is that Californians have no idea what Taylor ham is or how integral it is to bagel culture. Even ignoring the absence of a critical ingredient in California bagels, the flavor profiles are still vastly inferior.
California bagels favor fresh produce ingredients that sound like they were whispered by a pilates instructor: avocado, microgreens and sliced heirloom tomatoes. The proteins are usually artisanal enough to have a LinkedIn profile. Think smoked salmon with some fancy brand name, or some pretentious, thinly sliced bacon.
New Jersey bagels are dense and savory. They are most likely assembled by an extremely buff Italian man that blessed them with a Brooklyn accent. Fresh produce is a little more limited, while proteins like Taylor ham — yes, it is that important — and thick-cut bacon or sausage are coupled with copious amounts of American cheese and fried eggs. While the California bagel’s reduced artery-clogging potential is appreciated, this upside is insignificant when considering the loss of culture compared to bagels from the greater New York area.
In the hustle and bustle of Manhattan, bagel culture is centered around convenience. Bagels are quick, substantially filling, cheap and accessible. Bagel shops are as common in New York City as taquerias are in Los Angeles. In California, bagel shops aren’t nearly as abundant, and social media has encouraged the California bagel to chase exotic bagel presentations compared to the ease and convenience of its New York counterpart.
In other words, California bagels have been corporatized. While New York/New Jersey bagels remain a staple of local culture, California transformed bagels from a cultural staple into a luxurious, performative lifestyle product. A California bagel consumer will hold their bagel in front of a scenic backdrop to take an Instagram photo with sunlight beams illuminating it to achieve an ethereal glow, just as Apple advertises the release of a new iPhone. Thus, the bagel is stripped of all life to be photogenic rather than satiating. Here, a bagel is branding, not breakfast.
California took a food built on convenience and transformed it into an experience. The result is longer lines, higher prices and tiny, aestheticized bagels that require more photo shoots than bites taken out of it.
If California reconnected with the cultural significance of bagels, the state would become a seamless utopia. If California bagel shops emulated the ease and convenience of a New York bagel shop — which slaps together your order in thirty seconds — lines would cease to exist. And without lines, parking lots would move quicker and relieve the California parking lot crisis, no better captured by the Diamond Jamboree parking lot in Irvine.
Imagine Diamond Jamboree, but with a functional, stress-free parking lot. This would send chills down the spine of any UCI student. This is all achievable if California didn’t performatively corporatize their bagels because every Orange County problem is, at its core, a bagel problem.
Alexander Randall is an Opinion Staff Writer. He can be reached at arandal1@uci.edu.
Edited by Ruby Goodwin.
Alexander is a fourth-year International Studies & Spanish double major. He joined NewU as an opinion intern in the summer of 2025, primarily writing about politics, culture, and the occasional satire. In his personal time he enjoys reading, collecting houseplants, traveling, and thrifting!