Best Bagel Bakery '98

Best Bagel Bakery

Bagel Café
3955 E. Speedway Blvd.

STAFF PICK: Despite misleading marketing, many bagel places only bake their bagels on the premises. Whence comes the dough is anybody's guess: a central warehouse, corporate headquarters, frozen, fist-sized globs flown in to meet their fate in a rack oven.... Is that really what you think of when you see the word "fresh?" Us neither.

The folks at the Bagel Café have shown us the light. They actually make their bagels from scratch every morning, right there in the back. Everything is done in the store. The resulting bagels are bagels the way bagels were meant to be: large, moist, firm and rich in flavor. That said, you can find them at a variety of locally owned outlets, including the Chocolate Iguana, Café Paraiso and Café Renaissance, to name a few). If you're on the UA campus, stop by Old World Espresso, a little stand on the corner of Second Street and Cherry Avenue, where Bill, the owner, will be happy to set you up with a Bagel Café bagel and a hot shot of caffeine.