It's just about 9:30 a.m. on a Thursday morning, and all of the seven or so tables at Bagelsaurus are full. Two lines fill the narrow space — one line to order food and one for waiting for food. Behind the counter, bakers, sandwich makers, and other employees are on the move, working to accommodate the crowd. The air smells slightly yeasty and hangs heavy with the aroma of bagels, coffee, and the occasional whiff of smoky bacon.
It's tight quarters as a woman politely asks to sneak by to grab an empty seat. She apologies in advance and warns that once her bagel is ready, she'll need to get up again. Once she returns with her bagel, she cozies up to the front window, taking in the warm, streaming sunlight. There's a couple a table over discussing weekend plans in between mouthfuls of bagels and cream cheese. Halfway through, they switch bagels to get a taste of something different.
While it appears that there is never a table available, most people eat their bagel and get on their way, so tables come up regularly, and the wait is never too long. There's one exception — a woman who has made herself cozy in the center of it all. She is deep into her book and looks like she has been all morning, oblivious to the hustle and bustle of the busy bagel shop. Another woman wanting to snag a seat interrupts her reading to ask if she can pull up a chair and share the table. The reader happily accommodates before returning to her book.
Names are called as orders are up, and each bagel arrives on a silver platter, wrapped like a present in parchment paper. The classic jumbo combines an oversized and over medium egg, thick slices of sharp Cabot cheddar cheese, and a slathering of mustard butter. For a small fee, bacon, ham, or roasted tomatoes can top things off. The sandwich, as one might guess, is served on a choice of bagel.
A popular bagel choice at Bagelsaurus is the pretzel bagel, which is a bagel that is cooked like a pretzel and topped generously with flaky salt. On this trip, it's slathered with rosemary honey cream cheese. There's a woman who orders a bag of several pretzel bagels and a coffee to go. She debates which of the several cream cheese choices to select, ending up opting for beet hummus instead.
The piles of the day's bagels continue to decrease as people come and go. The woman in the center of it all is still buried in her book. It's possible that she will be there until it closes at 3 p.m., or until they run out of bagels.