Jersey Bagels

Consider the name of this restaurant. I cannot justify it as an authentic taste of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; but if you are in Myrtle Beach and crave bagels, it’s a place you will be happy to know about.

Boiled and baked on premises, they’re extra large, dense and chewy the way good bagels ought to be. I love gnawing them as is, and while they are fine for sandwiches, their massive oomph can overwhelm (and squish) whatever ingredients they hold.

Given that it’s Jersey Bagels, the must-eat item is a pork roll sandwich. New Jersey’s unofficial state meat pairs so well with egg and cheese, but I do think the combo works better on a softer, lighter hard roll (which is available here) than on one of the assertive bagels. Even though ingredients tend to slither out as you eat it, the combination of flavors — including the good flavor of the fresh bagel — is a winning one.

The sandwich menu is immense, featuring not only every possible thing you can put in a bagel, from butter & jelly or Nutella to a full-house tuna melt, but also a roster of hot and cold sub sandwiches as well as a Philly cheese steak on an Amoroso roll. Sandwiches are huge and beautifully constructed.

As for ambience, it’s New Jersey all the way: walls plastered with Garden State license plates, pictures of local heros, odes to the New York Giants, and that favorite Mid-Atlantic sandwich-shop decor, one-dollar bills.