Blogfinger

Bagel Talk is in the West Grove Mall, Neptune,  outside the “gates” of Ocean Grove.   All photos by Paul Goldfinger. Click once to enlarge and to request cream cheese.   Blogfinger.net. 7/18/25

By Paul Goldfinger MD.  Editor Blogfinger.net.

I am a regular most mornings at “Bagel Talk.”   It has been my “go-to” bagel place for some time.   Their bagels are  baked daily in the back.   Jack, the baker, a Russian -Jewish  immigrant, comes in at 3 am.  He says he was in the military in Russia.

We talked bagels one morning when I arrived early enough.  He came to America during the “open border” policy in which the Soviets permitted Jews to leave in the 1970’s.   That emigration has been a miracle for America, Israel and other countries.    My Dad was one American who “adopted a family.”  Jacob was taught bagel baking by the owner of the business here.

Blogfinger has posted many articles about bagel baking and shops, and there is considerable competition around here. “Bagel Talk” bagels are excellent. My favorites  are their  “everything” variety.  I also like onion and garlic.  Eileen prefers plain.   The shop is clean, and their other items including a variety of salads are delicious and fresh. The coffee is hot and very good.

And the location convenient to the Grove is wonderful, especially when we need to come and go in a hurry to find parking.

Will (right) works here in the summer along with his brother.    He leaves for Arizona State soon to study architecture. Elmer is from Peru and he is a world class bagel scooper and toaster. I call him a “master super-dooper scooper,” and we like to discuss his technique which he refers to as his “recipe.”.

“Z” is Mexican. He deals with the phone orders. The technology is of interest. The “pick up” phone doesn’t actually ring, but the orders are efficiently prepared.  When you arrive and go to the register, the workers are very precise. There are few errors because  they hand you a receipt which details every element of your order…eg “extra scallion cream cheese.”   Each receipt has a number, and they will call out your number when it is ready. The phone orders are ready  on time.

The diversity here is a beautiful thing. These girls have “everything” on theirs..   The customers are polite and friendly. Many speak Spanish as well as perfect English. Click to enlarge.

“Bagel Talk” is a “heimish” *  place.    In the morning there are many customers who are often workers who arrive with their trucks. Rarely does a customer wear a jacket and tie.

Police show up mainly from Neptune and Asbury Park. The customers are friendly and polite,  and a variety of languages are spoken.  I heard two men speaking a language which I did not recognize, so I asked them, and they said it was Georgian—an ancient  country on the Black Sea.

Others who come in are young people who arrive with their friends, all abuzz. There is seating and take out. Even though bagels have their roots among Polish Jews, I can’t identify that fact  among the customers and workers here.

The “ethnic thing” here  reminds me of pizza “parlors.”

“When I was a kid, I never had bagels, and there were no such shops.  Mostly we had “Russian rye” with big black seeds.  (Wegmans has that.).  I recall visiting my Mom’s family in Bayonne where there was a Jewish bakery and restaurant, and we called that “Bayonne Bread.”

Now you don’t have to be Jewish to be in the bagel business or Italian to make pizzas.

The menus in today’s bagel shops are quite  varied—the choices have evolved.

I think that Blogfinger has covered more bagel topics than most media in America.

Heimish (היימיש: pronounced by HAY-mish or HY-mish): Based on the Yiddish word heim, which means “home,” it describes things that are homey or familiar.   From Chabad.org.

BILLY JOEL with “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant. ”    I don’t have any bagel music. But Billy Joel is Jewish.