America, We Need To Talk About Your Bagel Order

If you watch my show “What Is Your Bagel Order?” every Saturday morning, you already know I am unreasonably passionate about bagels. I ask celebrities, influencers, athletes, politicians, one simple but revealing question: what is your bagel order? This week, though, we’re not talking about their orders. We’re talking about yours. Or more specifically, America’s.

Because I came across a video from my friend and official Bagel Ambassador Sam Silverman, he runs BagelFest and is absolutely the guy to follow if you care about bagels, and he was breaking down a Grubhub survey of the most popular bagel flavors, orders, and sandwiches in the United States. The list haunted me. Truly, deeply haunted me.

So let’s go through it together and figure out what, exactly, is wrong with this country’s bagel priorities. Below is a summary of the newest “Let Me Tell You Why” podcast, which you can listen to in full below, or wherever you get your podcasts from

Before we even touch the rankings, we have to set one ground rule: if you’ve never had a New York City bagel, you have never had a bagel.

That’s not shade to every other style, Montreal bagels are great, LA has its own thing going on, there are fun regional spins everywhere. But if you haven’t bitten into a fresh, still warm New York bagel, your bagel opinions are, at best, incomplete.

Ideally, you grew up on them. At minimum, you’ve at least taken one trip here, walked into a legit shop in the morning, and ordered something real.

The Most Popular Bagel Flavors In America (Apparently)

According to Grubhub’s data, these are the top bagel flavors in America:

1. Blueberry

2. Cinnamon raisin

3. Everything

4. Asiago

5. Rainbow

   
   

My personal go to? Egg everything. If you want to argue for a classic everything, I’m fine with that. Sesame? Also acceptable. Those are bagels. That’s a foundation you can build a society on.

But the number one bagel flavor in America being blueberry? Absolutely not! When someone orders a blueberry bagel on my show, I physically recoil. It makes me want to gag. It’s dessert cosplay pretending to be breakfast.

Number two is cinnamon raisin. Now, I actually like a cinnamon raisin bagel. I grew up on them. If you want a slightly sweet bagel, it hits. But second most popular flavor in the entire country? That’s wild.

At number three we finally get a normal bagel: everything. Reasonable. Honestly should be higher, but I’ll take the win where I can.

Then we get Asiago bagels. Do they taste bad? No. Do I know a single real person whose default order is an Asiago bagel? Also no. This feels like the menu item you only see at chains, like something you grab at Starbucks because it’s there, not because it’s good.

And number five is rainbow. Rainbow bagels had a moment, Instagram loved them, but let’s be honest: they taste like regular bagels dyed within an inch of their life. Top five flavor in America? Unless you’re a child, why are you doing this to yourself?

“Top Bagel Orders” That Make No Sense

Grubhub then breaks things into “top bagel orders” and “top bagel sandwiches,” which, to me, is a fake distinction. A bagel with stuff on it is a sandwich. It is all just food on bread.

Here are the “top bagel orders” in America:

1. Cinnamon raisin bagel with butter

2. Blueberry bagel with cream cheese

3. Everything bagel (plain, nothing on it)

4. Avocado and egg bagel

5. Bacon, egg, and cheese bagel sandwich

   
   

Here are the “top bagel sandwiches” in America:

1. Bacon, egg, and cheese bagel sandwich

2. Steak, egg, and cheese bagel sandwich

3. Avocado and egg bagel sandwich

4. Tofu cream cheese bagel sandwich

5. Lox

   
   

There is no universe where “scallion cream cheese” just doesn’t exist in the conversation, and yet it’s missing entirely from the Grubhub breakdown. That alone tells me this data is heavily skewed toward chains and people who have never had a proper bagel.

And that brings me back to my core point: so many of these orders sound like they’re coming from people whose main bagel experiences are at Starbucks or similar chains, where you’re grabbing whatever exists in the warming case on the way to work. That’s not the same thing as walking into a New York shop at 8 a.m. and ordering from people who only do bagels all day.

Here’s my call to action to Americans: Eat a real bagel. Don’t toast it if it’s fresh. Try lox with scallion cream cheese. And then, and only then, are you allowed to cast your bagel vote.