MILWAUKEE — Einstein Bros. Bagels has introduced a new item it is calling the “Pull-Apart Bagel,” a $3 bagel, in two seasonal flavors, Pumpkin Crunch and Cinnamon Sugar, that arrives in a single round form and which the customer is, per the menu, expected to pull apart. The item is part of the chain’s fall lineup, which also brings back the Pumpkin Bagel and Pumpkin Shmear, and a new Creme Brulee Iced Coffee priced at $1.99 in any size, a fact that has, at this writing, caused a number of regulars to quietly leave.
The Pull-Apart Bagel has generated a response that is, in the bagel world, described as “confused,” and, in the customer line, described as “wait, it just… comes in one piece?” The item, per the chain, is a bagel that you pull apart, and the flavor, per the flavor, is, in the case of the first variety, pumpkin, and, in the case of the second variety, cinnamon, sugar, which is, in the case of the second variety, also what it is.
Patrons have been, as patrons are, forthcoming. “I got the Pumpkin Crunch,” said one regular, holding the two halves at a distance, as though they had personally offended her. “I pulled it, and it was… crunchy, and it was pumpkin, and it was, I don’t know, $3. I’m a grown woman. I’m not going to fight the bagel.”
A high school student, who had been asked to try both, reported that the Cinnamon Sugar was “fine” and the Pumpkin Crunch was “also fine,” and that the act of pulling was, in his word, “the part I kept doing by accident,” because the bagel, he noted, does not, at the moment of the pull, announce itself as a bagel that is about to be pulled.
THE PULL, AT A GLANCE
- $3, a price that, in the bagel economy, is, per the regulars, “a bagel with a personality”
- Two flavors, both of which are, in the case of the first one, pumpkin, and in the case of the second one, cinnamon and sugar, which is the name of the flavor, which is what it is
- The pull, which is, per the customer, “the part I kept doing by accident,” and, per the chain, “the experience”
- The Creme Brulee Iced Coffee, $1.99 in any size, which is, per the regulars who noticed, “the part of the menu I did not sign up for”
- The Pumpkin Shmear, which is back, which is, in the fall, “a tradition,” and, in the hand, “a smear”
A bagel connoisseur, who was not named and who, in the bagel world, is treated as a kind of weather event, offered a single assessment, and then declined to elaborate. “It’s a bagel,” he said. “I pulled it. Now it’s two bagels. I don’t know what else you want me to say. I’ve had bagels for forty years. I have not once, in forty years, needed to be told to pull one. And now I am being told. And I am being charged.”
At press time, the line outside the café was still going, and a second customer, having just completed the pull, was standing with the two halves and the cream cheese and a look on her face that has, in the bagel world, been, for a long time, described as “the look,” and which, in this case, was, per her, “not a complaint, just a moment.”