The bagel hits keep coming. Over the past few years, San Diego has gone from a dearth to an abundance of options, from dense and chewy New York-style to California sourdough bagels, with more on the way (New Wave in Leucadia, Marigold Bagels in North Park, PopUp in La Jolla).
Never one to miss a party—Pacific Beach is now getting its own bagel spot this month, when Mission Bagel opens its first brick-and-mortar at 1344 Garnet Avenue (in the former The Friendly location). Mission’s Gabe Rubin came to San Diego from Cincinnati, Ohio 10 years ago, but didn’t really start testing his bagel acumen until the pandemic gave him (and pretty much everyone in the world) the urge to hit the kitchen.
“I just really needed a good bagel,” he laughs. With his engineering background, it became an ongoing development process to chase absolute bagel perfection. He nailed it pretty fast, leading him to launch a delivery and catering service during Covid and was quickly overwhelmed at its success. So naturally, he bought a food truck and hired reinforcements—his sister and her husband Hannah and Dante Brown.
“I called them and said, ‘You want to move out here and help me do this?’” he says of his partners. “Two weeks later, they packed up and moved out to San Diego to help me get this thing off the ground and run it.”
So what is it specifically that makes Mission Bagel’s bagels so special? “You know, I ask myself this question all the time,” Rubin laughs.
His recipe is New York-inspired, but not a direct copy of the style to better satisfy Californians’ palates. (Each one still uses a fermented dough, but not sourdough, and they’re slightly smaller than their bulging East Coast counterparts.) “It’s like a yeasty flavor, and then because we boil and bake, and the boiling is done in slightly basic and sweetened water, what you get is a snap in the crust. There’s a snap and a chew that you get from a New York bagel you don’t get from most bagels that you get out here.” Mission Bagel’s everything bagel is its best seller “by far,” he says.
The storefront will allow them to expand its volume as well, making more fan favorites like poppy bagels, fresh cream cheese flavors like scallion and strawberry, and other kosher items like egg salad based on his mother’s recipe. “It took a while to get people to sample the egg salad, because most of the time when you eat an egg salad, it’s very mediocre… [but] I have to make two or three batches all the time now, because it just flies off of our menu,” he explains.
Rubin says he plans to keep slinging bagels out of the food truck at 1608 Grand Avenue even after the brick-and-mortar opens. Depending on how business goes with two locations relatively close to one another, he’s open to moving it, but he plans to stick close to Pacific Beach regardless. “We really want to support the community that we live in,” he says. And while he hopes the community keeps supporting Mission in kind, he wants everyone to rejoice in San Diego’s overall bagel renaissance.
“I encourage people to go and try every good bagel in San Diego and figure out which one’s their favorite,” he says. “I’m just really excited for San Diego in general.”
Mission Bagel opens in late August 2025 at 1344 Garnet Avenue in Pacific Beach.
San Diego Restaurant News & Food Events
Korean-Inspired, Japanese-Style Egg Sandos Coming To San Diego
Egg Tuck is already causing Instagram influencers to salivate in Los Angeles, Illinois, and Texas, with plans to open at least 20 storefronts in California over the next year. Soon, it’ll be San Diego’s turn to post viral videos of ooey-gooey egg sandwiches overflowing out of their brioche buns. A representative for Egg Tuck said they hope to eventually open three total locations in San Diego, starting with a flagship store in Little Italy by summer 2026. It’s a bit of a wait, but who can resist a breakfast spread like this?
Beth’s Bites
- Hatch chile season is nearly upon us, and while New Mexico can lay claim to being home of hatch chiles, San Diego always gets in on the action. Valley Farm Market has declared August “Hatch Chile Month,” and will host a roasting and cookout of various hatch-heavy items like a Hatch Smash Burger and Hatch Quesadilla. Head to its Spring Valley spot on August 2, or La Jolla on August 9 for the fiery fun.
- Shorebird is open! The restaurant has locations in Newport Beach, Palm Desert, and Sedona in Arizona, but the Seaport Village spot took an especially long time to cut through all the red tape of construction at the waterfront. Finally, though, its doors and reservations are now open for all your raw bar needs.
- Ask any chef what’s so great about San Diego and there’s a 99.9 percent chance they’ll say “the quality and quantity of our local produce.” Now, it’s a little easier for consumers to take advantage of that bounty. Navore Market is a new San Diego–based online marketplace that connects consumers to local farmers (like Hukama Produce) to avoid the cost and hassle of a middleman. Just pick your produce, specify delivery or pickup, and voila! You’ve got fresh, locally grown, seasonal produce in your hands in no time. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m eager to see what sort of positive effects this may have. (Fingers crossed.)
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