🥯 Hot take: Boston’s bagels are GOOD

It’s Monday, Boston.

🍀 Happy St. Paddy’s Day! If you want to celebrate with a Guinness (if you can manage another after this weekend, anyway), here’s where to find the *best* pour in Boston.

🥳 And happy birthday to reader BreAnn Janvier! You’re probably already feeling lucky today, but we feel pretty lucky ourselves to have you as a reader. <3

👀 What’s on tap today:

• The Red Line is in turbo mode

• Southie’s new “adult playground”

• St. Paddy’s tomfoolery prevailed

Up first…

FOOD & DRINK

Inside Boston’s bagel craze

Boston’s bagel scene is no NYC — in fact, only 11% of polled B-Siders would describe it as “good.” But bagel pop-up shops are changing the game. 

🥯 Pop-up bagel shops have taken Boston by storm. “It does seem specifically like Boston has seen a lot of new [pop-up] shops,” said Mary Ting Hyatt, owner of Bagelsaurus, a beloved (former pop-up!) bagel shop in Cambridge. Ting Hyatt is talking about businesses like Brick Street Bagels, The Grateful Bagel, and most recently, WaldoBagel. They’re dominating the local bagel market — and our FYPs — with loooong lines and competitive drops for small batch bagels usually made and marketed by one-person teams.

📍Let’s get one thing straight: Boston’s brick-and-mortar bagels aren’t bad. It’s more that the great ones are, quite literally, few and far between (think: Kupel’s, Bagelsaurus, Exodus Bagels). It took Darren Sylvin, of The Grateful Bagel, getting onto “the social media bagel scene” to realize Boston’s bagel scene “wasn't as barren as people made it sound.” “There's really cool people making good bagels in Boston,” said Jordan Renouf, the creator of Brick Street Bagels. “I just don't think that they're as common or ubiquitous as they are in New York.” 

📲 So why are these bagels popping off? Two words: Social media. In the beginning of his pop-up, Renouf credits “75%” of his success to his viral social media presence. Though that breakdown has shifted as time passed and his bagels have improved, without social media, he’s not sure if he’d be as successful. Social media also helped The Grateful Bagel get off the ground. After it landed an IG feature with @thecitylists, it “went from 700 followers to like 2,000 in like a day. That's when opportunities around the city started to happen,” Sylvin said.

🥹 But it’s not just viral videos people love. “The secret sauce for brands today is making Gen Zs feel that they’re part of a community,” according to Vogue Business. 54% of Gen Zers agree they’re more likely to buy from — or in Brick Street’s case, schlep to the South End for — a brand that makes them feel connected. It might seem counterintuitive, but for Gen Z, standing in line for an hour to buy bagels (or coffee, or anything) from a brand they love might even be a draw. “Even if it's not in the food industry, my advice is: People online are drawn to the story behind the business, and the people,” Renouf said. 

CITY

Quick & dirty headlines

🚇 The Red Line is officially in turbo mode. Last week, the Red Line became the first MBTA line to hit 50 mph in over 20 years (!). You might remember the agency teased the speed limit increase earlier this year, when they said some sections of the Red and Orange lines would eventually be returned to 50 and 55 mph (the originally intended speed limits). And Friday morning, after months of thorough maintenance, the Red Line’s Braintree branch hit that milestone. The Orange Line should follow later this year. Thanks, Train Daddy!

😂 This weekend, Boston’s mayoral candidates faced off. Through … comedy. We’re talking about Boston’s annual St. Patrick’s Day breakfast, a tradition where local politicians flex their comedy chops with varying degrees of success. This year’s biggest laughs came from Mayor Michelle Wu and Boston mayoral candidate Josh Kraft. Wu came out swinging, “welcoming” Kraft to Boston and taking a dig at his $2 million condo “subsidized by [his] dad’s company,” while Kraft joked about potholes, his family, and the White Stadium drama. It wasn’t exactly stand-up special material, but we’ll give them points for a nice moment re: Wu’s congressional hearing.

🧑‍🎓 Local grad school programs are taking a major blow. A bunch of would-be accepted students at UMass Chan Medical School had their offers revoked last week due to “funding uncertainty," one of the many ways local schools have been affected by President Trump’s federal funding cuts. Some other instances: Harvard’s Arts and Sciences Graduate School rescinded all waitlisted students this year due to the "uncertain financial landscape”; Harvard also announced a temporary hiring freeze; and MIT is reducing the number of grad students it admits to “cut indirect costs.”

🤸 Southie’s hottest opening: A 30,000-square-foot adult playground. No joke! This spring, the team behind classic Southie spots like Loco and Capo is opening a giant seasonal “playground” called Park City at the Lot on Dot. Right now, details are still scarce, but we can expect family-friendly fun, including tons of food (think: lobster rolls, smash burgers, ice cream, street noodle bowls), drinks, live music, and entertainment. The opening date is slotted in for May, but we’ll keep you posted. 

MEDIA SPONSORSHIP

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THINGS TO DO

Weekday checklist

🍀 Get lucky (with free food). Heading to Clearys for a pint? Today only, B-Side members can get a complimentary mini Irish trio with purchase of food or bev. The trio includes corn beef egg rolls, an Irish sausage roll, and spiced French fries. Sign up to become a member here!

🎥 See Boston’s biggest mystery on the big screen. Grab tickets to “Any Day Now,” a new film inspired by the infamous Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum art heist. It’s playing tonight at the Somerville Theatre.

🏀 Don’t watch the C’s on TV. Watch them IRL at TD Garden! Because we found ~$70 Celtics tickets. You’re welcome. <3

🇺🇸 Hear Rep. Ayanna Pressley’s political POV. The Boston Globe is hosting a Q&A with her on March 18 to discuss the news of the day, the Trump admin’s latest actions, and the future of progressivism in the U.S. You can join the convo online or IRL.

🥟 Eat your weight in pierogies. Jaju Pierogi is hosting an all-you-can-eat pierogi buffet on March 20, and you can literally stay ’til 12 a.m. There are only a handful of tickets left. B-Side members saw it first ;) 

😬 Take cringe to a whole ’nother level. Watch others read their unedited thoughts from their teenage diaries to a group of strangers (Emily 1,000% recommends) at this “Mortified” show on March 21. 

🛼 Roll up to Boston’s coolest party. And by “roll,” we mean, roller skate! Chez Vous Rollerskating Rink is hosting a “Roll Up Skate Party” on March 20, with live music and games, all under the disco lights.

🕺 Step into a dance party time machine. Remnant’s satellite cafe is throwing it back with a 2000s and early 2010s dance party on March 21. Writer’s note: The fact the early 2010s are now considered “throwbacks” makes us sick. 

QUICK QUESTION!

🌈 Did you celebrate St. Paddy’s Day this weekend?

ONE LAST THING

St. Paddy’s Day tomfoolery

Another St. Paddy’s Day parade has come and gone. And despite some local officials’ best efforts, it was pretty much business as usual, tomfoolery included.

Although the parade started earlier and officials promised to crack down on the general chaos, from what we can tell, the commuter rail was still basically a moving pre-game, and the crowds on the Red Line were worse than the worst 5 p.m. commute you can imagine. That said, local cops did confiscate a truly impressive number of BORGs. 

But the highlight of the whole day might’ve been the annual “running of the gingers” at Boston College. The joyful vibes in this TikTok are honestly giving last year’s duck boat parade a run for its money for the happiest Boston moment we’ve ever seen. 

— Written by Gia Orsino and Emily Schario

🍀 Thanks for reading! Fingers crossed we don’t see any stories about public urination or ripping down street signs today! 

🦃 The results are in: 38% of B-Siders say they’ve had an unfortunate run-in with a Boston turkey before … and many of them wrote in with varying degrees of fear and confidence. One reader said: “No big deal, but I once saved a guy's life by running at a turkey and gobbling at the top of my lungs.”

💃 Keep up with us @BostonBSide on IG, TikTok, and Twitter. Send comments and suggestions to [email protected] or [email protected].