Call Your Mother Deli - Pearl Street / Cap Hill Denver — Restaurant in Denver

Born and raised in New York and ate a "bagels only" diet for many years - so take that for what it's worth.

The order: everything bagel, not toasted (never toast a bagel from a deli if its a bagel with cream cheese order), vegan cream cheese (please g-d forgive me, I am recently severely lactose intolerant).

Notes: I am grading on a curve since I went around Noon to avoid the morning rush so the bagel I ate wasn't a freshly baked bagel as it would have been if I went in the morning. This bagel must have been a few hours out of the oven at that point.

Pros: -IT SMELLS GOOD: When you walk in it has the correct smell of a NYC deli/bagel shop (I'm talking Absolute Bagels, Bagels on the Square, Tompkin's Square Bagels).

-FAST BAGEL AT THE RIGHT TIME: If you go after the breakfast rush - quick order and ready - I've walked by around 7:30-8:00am and the line is down the block

-THE SCHMEAR: The schmear was on point - perfect ratio of schmear to bagel

-SEASONING: the everything seasoning was very good, tasted like the good old days when I used to eat bagels 3x a day.

Cons: -THE BAGEL ITSELF: Not quite as bad as the midwest bagels of Einstein's, Moes, and Big Daddy Bagels, but not nearly as good as a real tri-state area bagel. I suggest they import NYC water for the baking process to achieve the right texture.

-LIMITED FLAVORS: We demand a poppy seed bagel on the menu! Who's with me??

Overall - I give "Call Your Mother" a 4/5 rating with the curve. In a city like Denver where finding a good bagel is more difficult than locating the holy grail itself, or discovering the lost empire of Atlantis, CYM is a welcome addition to the neighborhood and I will be going back as it's the only bagel shop in walking distance with a halfway decent bagel. Rosenberg's is probably a better bagel objectively, but it's on the other side of town.

I...

I think this is currently Denver's best bagel, but not Denver's best bagel shop, and that's because it's not really a bagel shop or a deli at all.

They call it a Jew-ish deli, and I think the -ish is a good qualifier. Maybe it's a Jew-ish Deli-ish sandwich shop?

My main complaint is that if you want to go in and order a dozen bagels— rather than fulfill the order while you're listing the bagels, the cashier will send the order to the back of house where it gets added to the same queue as the sandwich orders. On average I end up waiting 15-20 minutes to pick up sometimes just a half-dozen bagels. Sure you can order ahead, but even then it might be another 10 minutes on busier mornings. It's a system that really doesn't make sense for bagels.

At a real Jewish deli everything moves a lot faster. People will yell at you if you don't know what you're ordering, and as you list bagels the front of house is bagging them so that when you pay you get your order at the same time. Even on the busiest mornings at New York's top bagel spots you can be in and out within 5 minutes if you know what you're doing. It's chaotic and loud but it's a proven system that has been working for close to a hundred years.

My suggestion to them is to move the location of the bagels closer to the cash register. There are only 6 bagel flavors, it would be so easy to bag them while taking the order, and would allow back of house to focus on sandwiches.

The bagels are good, and very expensive but in line with the competition in the area so I think the...

Call Your Mother ⁃ 9.5/10 ⁃ $10.50 for the Thunderbird (sausage egg and cheese on maple salt and pepper bagel ⁃ I should preface this by saying that I ordered this with an ubereats discount the morning after a friends wedding (which, in my opinion is the idea use case of a breakfast sandwich) ⁃ This is it. This is the one. This is the best breakfast sandwich in Denver. I will continue to test other options for the sake of completeness but I could eat this every morning and die happy. ⁃ To start with, the bagel is wildly good. I’m not a bagel connoisseur, but this is something special. I’m not sure what they do or how they do it but it’s got this bit of sweetness that goes just wonderfully with the maple sausage. ⁃ The chicken maple sausage is perfect. Nothing else to say. ⁃ The American/cheddar combo cheese is exactly what I want in a breakfast sandwich. It gives you cheddar flavor with American meltiness. ⁃ They have some hot honey in there which negates the need for additional hot sauce unless you want something more powerful ⁃ The only thing that would make this better would be if they had an option to put a hash brown or latke in the middle (you can buy a single one on the side and add it yourself if you want) ⁃ The important takeaway here is that this is the best sausage egg and cheese in denver and you should probably go get one if youre looking for a good breakfast sandwich. Is it a tad pricy? Sure. Is it...