{"id":130252,"date":"2026-01-12T14:25:47","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T14:25:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/130252\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T14:25:47","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T14:25:47","slug":"sfs-newest-bagel-shop-started-as-a-raunchy-burning-man-pop-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/130252\/","title":{"rendered":"SF\u2019s newest bagel shop started as a raunchy Burning Man pop-up\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

As is the case with most dishes that incite almost irrationally strong opinions<\/a>, there\u2019s no single answer to the question \u201cWhat is a perfect bagel?\u201d But if you ask Benjamin Simon, he\u2019ll say that the ideal one exhibits a stark contrast of textures. The crust should produce a nice crackle when you bite into it, and the interior should be pillow-soft.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is the underlying belief behind the bagels at Simon\u2019s SoMa bakery Bagel Daddy, which opened in December. The menu includes five varieties of bagels \u2014 plain, everything, sesame, poppy, and salt \u2014 and nine flavors of house-made cream cheese, which range from the usual suspects like plain and scallion to the unexpected blackberry mint and garlic chile crisp. There are bacon, egg, and cheeses, and a classic open-face lox sandwich featuring sushi-grade smoked salmon, as well as coffee, cold brew, and tea.<\/p>\n

Though he\u2019s a software engineer (and the founder and CEO of yoga app Down Dog) by day, Simon has been obsessed with bagels since his childhood outside of Chicago. \u201cBagels were like, a third of my calories,\u201d he says with a laugh. He got into the field the way several other Bay Area bagel-makers did<\/a>: After moving to San Francisco more than a decade ago, he couldn\u2019t find what he considered to be a good bagel. So he started making his own.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He\u2019d been looking for a brick-and-mortar space for years before debuting Bagel Daddy as a pop-up at Burning Man in 2023. He baked 1,000 bagels at a commissary kitchen in the Bayview and brought them to the Playa, where they were an immediate hit. Simon admits that part of the draw might have been the branding, which leaned into the more provocative implications of the Bagel Daddy name (opens in new tab)<\/a>. (Sample signage: \u201cBagel daddy. Cum hungry. Taste our cream.\u201d) Though the current logo stars a family-friendly cartoon bagel with a fluffy handlebar mustache who wears nothing but shoes and gloves, the Burning Man version showcased a rotund baked good in a full body harness, brandishing a whip.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Simon has been building out Bagel Daddy\u2019s space for two years, transforming a former full-service Mediterranean restaurant into a counter-service shop and sizable bakery. Making bagels is a two-day process, he explains, that starts with mixing 250 pounds of dough in the giant standmixer, feeding it through a bagel former, and proofing the rings overnight. The next day, they\u2019re boiled in 45 gallons of water spiked with barley malt syrup before being baked on burlap boards in a 500-degree deck oven. To achieve his ideal juxtaposition of textures, Simon\u2019s recipe aims for a high hydration content in the dough. \u201cWe basically push it as far as we can,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A\"A<\/p>\n

Simon estimates that the bakery can produce between 4,000 and 5,000 bagels a day. Beyond selling to the residents and office workers in the area, he hopes Bagel Daddy will become known for office catering and wholesale offerings. The team is already using a blast chiller to freeze six-packs of bagels that can be brought home, alongside 8-ounce containers of house-made cream cheese.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Simon admits that nothing he\u2019s doing is new \u2014 the city\u2019s bagel scene<\/a> has changed wildly, and for the better, since he started his journey. \u201cSan Francisco is no longer in the bagel drought that we were even five years ago,\u201d he says, while noting that none of the Bay Area\u2019s other bagel shops manage to produce his ideal product.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

After spending most of his professional life working on digital products, he\u2019s been challenged and delighted by his new vocation. Navigating permitting and construction, learning where to install sinks and drains, and exploring the wild world of kitchen ventilation have all been challenges for the first-time food business owner. \u201cUnlike software, it\u2019s pretty hard to iterate with restaurants,\u201d he says, \u201cunless you\u2019re opening a second restaurant.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As is the case with most dishes that incite almost irrationally strong opinions, there\u2019s no single answer to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":130253,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[415,22660,35067,101,103,102,104,106,105,1911],"class_list":{"0":"post-130252","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-bagels","9":"tag-bakeries","10":"tag-eat-here","11":"tag-san-francisco","12":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","13":"tag-san-francisco-news","14":"tag-sf","15":"tag-sf-headlines","16":"tag-sf-news","17":"tag-soma"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}