America, We Need To Talk About Your Bagel Order

If you watch my show “What’s Your Bagel Order?” » every Saturday morning, you already know that I am unreasonably passionate about bagels. I ask celebrities, influencers, athletes, politicians a simple but revealing question: what is your bagel order? But this week we’re not talking about their orders. We’re talking about yours. Or more precisely, that of America.

Because I came across a video from my friend and official Bagel Ambassador, Sam Silverman, he runs BagelFest and is absolutely the person to follow if you care about bagels, and he was breaking down a Grubhub survey on the most popular bagel flavors, orders, and sandwiches in the United States. The list haunted me. Truly, it haunted me deeply.

So let’s take a look at this together and find out what exactly is wrong with this country’s bagel priorities. Below is a summary of the latest “Let Me Tell You Why” podcast, which you can listen to in its entirety below, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Before we even get into the rankings, we need to establish a ground rule: if you’ve never had a bagel in New York, you’ve never had a bagel.

It doesn’t overshadow all the other styles, Montreal bagels are great, Los Angeles has its own thing, there are fun regional versions everywhere. But if you haven’t bitten into a fresh, still-warm New York bagel, your opinions on bagels are incomplete at best.

Ideally, you grew up with them. At a minimum, you’ve made at least one trip here, walked into a legitimate store in the morning, and ordered something real.

The Most Popular Bagel Flavors in America (Apparently)

According to Grubhub data, these are the best bagels flavors in America:

My personal visit? Egg everything. If you want to make a case for classic everything, that’s fine by me. Sesame? Also acceptable. They’re bagels. It is a foundation on which you can build a society.

But the number one bagel flavor in America is blueberry? Absolutely not! When someone orders a blueberry bagel on my show, I physically recoil. It makes me want to gag. It’s a dessert cosplay that pretends to be breakfast.

Number two is cinnamon raisin. Now I really love a cinnamon raisin bagel. I grew up with them. If you want a slightly sweet bagel, this fits. But the second most popular flavor nationwide? It’s wild.

At number three, we finally get a normal bagel: everything. Reasonable. Honestly, it should be higher, but I’ll take the win where I can.

Next we get Asiago bagels. Do they taste bad? No. Do I know a single real person whose default order is an Asiago bagel? No either. It looks like the menu item you only see at chains, something you grab at Starbucks because it’s there, not because it’s good.

And number five is rainbow. Rainbow bagels had a moment, Instagram loved them, but let’s be honest: They taste like regular bagels dyed within inches of their life. The five most popular flavors in America? Unless you are a child, why are you doing this to yourself?

The ‘Best Bagel Orders’ That Make No Sense

Grubhub then divides things into “best bagel orders” and “best bagel sandwiches,” which, to me, is a false distinction. A bagel with stuff on it is a sandwich. It’s just food on bread.

Here are the “best bagel orders” in America:

1. Cinnamon Raisin Bagel with Butter

2. Blueberry and Cream Cheese Bagel

3. Everything bagel (plain, nothing on it)

5. Bacon, Egg and Cheese Bagel Sandwich

Here are the “best bagel sandwiches” in America:

1. Bacon, Egg and Cheese Bagel Sandwich

2. Steak, Egg, and Cheese Bagel Sandwich

3. Avocado and egg bagel sandwich

4. Tofu and cream cheese bagel sandwich

There’s no universe where “scallion cream cheese” simply doesn’t exist in conversation, and yet it’s completely absent from Grubhub’s breakdown. That alone tells me that this data is heavily biased toward chains and people who have never eaten a real bagel.

And that brings me back to my central point: A lot of these orders seem to be coming from people whose primary bagel experiences are at Starbucks or similar chains, where you grab whatever exists in the hot case on the way to work. It’s not the same as walking into a New York store at 8 a.m. and ordering from people who only make bagels all day.

Here’s my call to action to Americans: Eat a real bagel. Do not grill it if it is fresh. Try lox with scallion cream cheese. And then, and only then, are you allowed to vote for bagels.