Bullfrog Bagels, a growing bagel shop chain based in the District, will be leaping into Western Market this spring.
Bullfrog Bagels owner Jeremiah Cohen said he is still awaiting final inspections but is aiming to open the chain’s fourth location in the food hall by March 1. He said the cafe will open seven days a week at 7 a.m. and continue service until bagels run out, which he said typically happens at about 3 p.m.
The bagel chain, which operates brick-and-mortar stores in Eastern Market and on H Street NE and a food truck in Tenleytown, serves customizable bagels and a number of “bagelwiches,” including bagel Reubens, BLTs and tuna melts. Cohen said Bullfrog Bagels’ new Western Market space can seat five people, but customers can use open dining space on the cafe’s patio and in the market’s dining area.
Cohen said the chain is already working with the University to set up GWorld payment for the store’s opening and said Zeke’s Coffee, a local coffee roastery with two D.C. locations, will provide coffee beans for the cafe’s drinks.
Cohen said he forged Bullfrog Bagels’ original bagel recipe in 2014 with “hard-to-please” bagel critics in mind, like individuals from New York and New Jersey, and said he’s won the approval of many of the bagel hardliners.
Bullfrog Bagels managers looked for a spot in Western Market before it opened in 2021, but plans were delayed until after the pandemic, when they joined a waitlist for an unoccupied property space in the market to debut its new location, according to Cohen. He said while the market hosts PAUL Bakery, which serves breakfast food like coffee and baked goods, Bullfrog Bagels offers a breakfast that’s “enticing” and “completely different.”
“I love the GW campus,” he said. “I was going in there before it was even Western Market. It just seemed like a really lively place.”
Cohen said the Western Market space isn’t large enough to accommodate bagel preparation in-store, so bagel-makers from the chain’s nearest kitchen will send a shipment of fresh, ready-to-eat bagels each morning.
“All bagels are different,” Cohen said. “There’s always something, some element that’s different about them, but people really like our bagels.”
