Atlanta has historically favored biscuits. But recently, the southern capital city has embraced a northern import: New York City-style bagels.
Emerald City Bagels, which originally opened in 2018 in East Atlanta Village, doesn’t represent an NYC borough by name, but the mother-daughter owners, Deanna and Jackie Halcrow, are unmistakenly Long Islanders. The original location and new store on Atlanta’s Beltline drip in retro New York deli style: Green and white subway tile line the walls, while staff don paper soda jerk hats and white aprons. They stuff everything bagels schmeared with green olive cream cheese into paper bags as customers take their orders to go.
Emerald City isn’t alone in its love of NYC foods: in the suburb of Stone Mountain, NY Deli & Juice Bar recently began serving chopped cheese sandwiches in a building that had once been a Waffle House. The customary counter and high chairs that once held pecan waffles and smothered hash browns have been replaced with a long bodega-style service counter.
New York imports have been flooding Atlanta—from pizza to Chinese to chopped cheese—but bagels are the most prominent addition to the city’s food scene, a reflection of a North-to-South migration in the last few years.
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“This is comfort food, a taste of home,” said Julie Dragich, part-owner of The Bronx Bagel Buggy. “I think many of our New York customers feel the same way.”
Those customers are easy to come by in Atlanta, according to the U.S. Census data. More than 50,000 New Yorkers moved to Georgia from 2021-2024; they moved to Georgia at similar rates of people making regional moves, such as from Alabama or South Carolina to Georgia. According to the Atlanta Regional Commission, most young adults moving to Atlanta from out of state are relocating from New York City.
There are a few reasons New Yorkers have been moving to metro-Atlanta, including milder winters and job opportunities. But across the board, many New Yorkers cite a better cost of living as the top catalyst for the southern migration.
“A house that’s $300,000, $400,000 in Georgia would be over a million dollars in New York,” said Kamal Dorsainville, who’s originally from Brooklyn.
His wife, Susan Dorsainville, said when they showed friends Georgia’s housing prices, their reaction was swift–we’re coming too. “And then they brought two more families down with them,” she said.
Andrew Thomas Lee