Call Your Mother has opened its first Philly location in Fishtown. Can these private equity-backed bagels compete?

Bagel shops come in all stripes. There are sandwich shops and schmear shops, shops that will gladly toast your bagel, shops that will refuse to scoop it, and shops with service so curmudgeonly it comes across as endearing.

Call Your Mother, the latest bagel chain to hit Philly, isn’t trying to be any of those. Instead, it is America’s preppiest bagel shop, closer to a viral tween clothing store than a neighborhood deli.

The shop’s newly opened Fishtown location looks like a boutique that so happens to serve bagels, its bubblegum pink storefront sporting a mural of a cream cheese-and-lox bagel and a latte alongside a school of cartoon fish.

Founded in Washington, D.C. by husband-wife duo Andrew Dana and chef Daniela Moreira, Call Your Mother has two more Philly locations on the way in Rittenhouse Square and Washington Square West. The shop first opened in 2018 in the D.C.’s Park View neighborhood as a self-proclaimed “Jew-ish” deli with pink and teal walls, loaded sandwiches, and a chewy-soft bagel recipe so good, even Joe Biden was a fan.

Shortlisted as a candidate for Bon Appetit’s best new restaurants list in 2019, Call Your Mother is now synonymous with the private-equity bagel boom: The shop went from a handful of locations in D.C. to 28 across Maryland, Virginia, Colorado, Illinois, and Pennsylvania after the investment firm Invus, an early Cava investor, purchased a stake in the company at the start of 2025.

To be fair, Call Your Mother is making an effort to blend into Fishtown. The inside of its 1500 Frankford Ave. space doubles down on the whimsy with kitschy wares — Phillies bobbleheads, a tiny Liberty Bell, and a bedazzled basketball — procured from local thrift stores such as Thunderbird Salvage. A tasteful merch wall abuts the cash register, where customers can purchase pastel-colored dad hats and tees alongside jars of Fishtown Pickle Project and One Trick Pony, the peanut butter brand that Dana and Moreira also co-founded. (The bathroom, however, sticks out: it’s wrapped in a Lilly Pulitzer-style tropical wallpaper.) .

Indoor seating is limited, split between a few two-tops and counter seating. That didn’t stop influencers from flooding the space during a soft opening. They were after the money shot: carefully pulling apart a steaming breakfast sandwich to create a dramatic cheese pull.

Neighbors were more skeptical.

“How many bagel and coffee places do we need in Fishtown?” said Gabriela Rivera, a decades-long neighborhood resident who wandered in Tuesday morning during her morning walk.

It’s a fair question.

Call Your Mother’s first Philly location is smack in the middle of the city’s bagel renaissance. The shop is surrounded by outposts of Philly Style Bagels, Bagels & Co., and Kismet, three local chains. It’s also on a strip of Frankford Avenue that has seen an influx of corporate chains, from the controversial Starbucks across the street to New York City’s venture capital-backed 7th Street Burger, which opened four blocks south last month.

“For a long time [Fishtown] was small businesses ... the more big stuff that comes in, I worry the neighborhood is going to become less community-centered,” said Justin Berger, Rivera’s fiancé, who also lives in the area.

Both of them still ordered breakfast sandwiches. They were free, after all.

Call Your Mother’s bagels split the difference between New York-style — the classic fluffy-yet-crusty kind — and Montreal-style, which are smaller, sweeter, and denser.

Bagels are made on-site using a recipe developed by Moreira, an Argentinian-born chef who never ate a bagel until building Call Your Mother with her husband. The chain’s are still hand-rolled and kettle-boiled with a simple honey-sweetened dough.

Their bagels come in nine flavors, ranging from classic plain and everything and to cheesy garlic bread, maple sea salt and pepper, and salt-crusted pretzel. You can order them with a schmear, though most customers go for the sandwiches, which range from $9 to $15 in Philly.

The chain’s menu includes 19 different sandwiches, categorized indiscriminately as those with “breakfast-y vibes” and “lunch-y vibes.” (You can order both all day.) Some fuse Dana’s half-Jewish upbringing with Moreira’s Argentinean palate, like the Jetski, which features sofrito-seasoned brisket and pastrami. Others, like the Don Cesar — literally a grilled chicken Caesar salad on a bagel — are somewhat light, while some are downright decadent. Case in point, the fall special: meatballs, marinara, and mozzarella on a bagel.

The Thunderbird (chicken sausage, eggs, American cheese, cheddar cheese, and spicy honey, recommended on a maple sea salt bagel) tastes “like a happy accident,” said Jordan Price, a local content creator who also lives in Fishtown. “It reminds me of when all the stuff on a breakfast platter mixes together and gets syrupy.”

Berger, on the other hand, was sure he could taste a bit of the private equity.

“It tasted like it was made somewhere else and shipped here,” he said after biting into his lox and cream cheese on yuca bread, Call Your Mother’s gluten-free bagel alternative.

Price doesn’t mind. The chains are already here, she said. At least this one has bagels she thinks her kids will like.

“There’s literally a Sweetgreen down the street. We are surrounded by so much private equity,” Price said. “If it was the first of that sort of thing in the neighborhood, I’d be more upset.”

Call Your Mother, 1500 Frankford Ave., 215-703-3254, callyourmotherdeli.com. Hours: 6:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday; 6:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday to Sunday.