Bagel Central

The bagels are boiled before they are baked, which is the line between a real New York style bagel and a roll with a hole in it, and it is why Bagel Central has a line at its downtown Bangor door most mornings.

New York style bagels, and what gets built on them

The plain article comes first. Get that right and the rest follows, which is roughly how the menu is arranged: bagels on their own, then bagel sandwiches that turn the same bread into breakfast or lunch, then soups for the half of the Maine year that calls for them. Vegan baking runs alongside rather than off in a corner, and the tofu cream cheese bagel is the clearest version of it, a boiled-and-baked bagel carrying a dairy-free spread instead of the usual schmear.

The rest of the counter stays in the same register. Bagels go out by the bag as readily as by the sandwich, sandwiches are built to order rather than sitting pre-made, and the vegan selection is broad enough to be a reason to come in rather than a concession.

A brick-walled room that fills up

The room is spacious and brick-walled, the kind of downtown space that has been doing one thing long enough to feel settled rather than styled. Regulars queue, the noise rises with them, and the rhythm is order-at-the-counter rather than table service. It reads as a bagel shop first and a breakfast cafe second, which is the right way round for what it actually does well. The mix of trade gives it away: people collecting a dozen bagels to take back to an office standing behind people eating one at a table with a coffee.

Start with the tofu cream cheese bagel

If a single order has to stand for the place, make it the tofu cream cheese bagel: it puts both identities, New York style bagels and a serious vegan line, on the same plate. From there a bagel sandwich is the direct move toward something more like a meal, and a bowl of soup is the sensible companion in a Maine winter. Nothing here rests on a claimed accolade. The appeal is bagels made the long way, every day.