Exciting New Bagel Business Opens From PizzaHacker

Popular Mission/Bernal pizzeria PizzaHacker has been quietly experimenting with something new in the oven: Bagels, operating under the moniker BagelMacher. So far, they’re just available in limited quantities on Sundays, from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., but the news is more than welcome in a town largely bereft of proper bagel options.

A tinkerer at heart, PizzaHacker founder Jeff Krupman started his business as a closely-followed pop-up, toting a modified “Franken-Weber” pizza grill around the city before settling into a permanent, casual space at 3299 Mission Street in 2013. For his latest project, he advertises bagels “like your bubbie’s bubbie used to make,” boiled in lye water and naturally leavened.

Varieties include everything, smoked salt, poppy, sesame, and sesame zaatar, available with toppings like cream cheese, butter, fruit preserves, and avocado. PIzzaHacker chef Roger Feely also cooked up a “Raisin Ras el Hanout” bagel variety, made with a North African spice mixture, which Krupman calls “truly inspired.”

Customers can get their lox fix with “yiddish sandwiches,” but there’s no eggs/bacon choice on the menu (yet). To drink, BagelMacher has coffee from their Mission Street neighbor The Coffee Shop, plus grapefruit juice and even grapefruit mimosas.

For the moment, BagelMacher isn’t doing dozens to go — since they’re only making about 150 bagels per day of business. Next up is Saturday service.

Sure, it’s a small start, but still a mitzvah — or good deed — in this part of the world. Other notable players addressing the Bay Area bagel drought include nearby Wise Sons Deli, now deep in the game with several Wise Sons Bagelry locations, a second location of Montreal-inspired Beauty’s Bagels in Oakland, and Daily Driver, a bakery and creamery expected to open this Spring in the Dogpatch.