I am nothing if not a creature of habit, especially when it comes to restaurants. While I love trying new places to eat I tend to hit my hot spots with much greater regularity than the new places. Although I suppose it is fair to add that if my bank account were a little more flush I'd have less trouble trying the new joints.
The issue is that when cash is tight it is harder to try something new. I love to eat and the disappointment of a bad meal irks me, especially when it is not a free meal. It is one thing to try a new recipe and decide that you don't like it, quite another to pay for it.
Earlier this week I hit a place that I have been going to for at least 30 years, The Bagel Nosh. Ok, excuse me, it hasn't been called The Bagel Nosh in a while. A while back the owners changed the name and then they went and sold the place. Somewhere between the name change and the sale things started to go downhill.
It is more than a little disappointing. It is not just the sentimental value of the place, but it has that. I can tell more than one story about it. As a matter of fact it was where I spent more than one morning period my senior year of high school. I missed all sorts of time in Accounting, but still managed to get an 'A.' Go figure.
Anyhoo, the place has meaning for me, but it also used to be a decent place to eat. It is not that the food was stellar, but they had a few things I really liked. Mostly I enjoyed the bagels. They made them differently than most places in the Valley. They had this doughy consistency that I loved.
Those bagels kept me coming in. Even when the service went to hell and the interior began to cry out for some sort of update I still went once a month to grab a bagel. Now I am not sure that I can do that any longer.
The new owners have messed with the recipe. I don't quite know what they did, but they messed with something that wasn't broken. I suppose that I should try it again. It might have been a bad batch. There could be a perfectly good explanation for the bagels, but I don't really want to try again.
It is like a bad relationship. For a while you keep making excuses why you should keep it going and then one day it just hits you and you know that it is done.
It is over. A 30 year love affair has gone stale. I am sorry Bagel Nosh but if I am to honor the memory of the good times I have to let you go. There is no shmearing words. We're toast.
5 comments:
Ugh. I HATE it when that happens! I go to a bagel shop that used to do the most amazing chicken in a delicious mayonnaise sauce then one day they decided to just get chicken breast. It was never the same again :(
Jack...I haven't been to the Bagel Nosh in years...didn't even know they changed the name. But you're right, it was THEE place to go. They were the first to make bagel sandwiches.
Yummy. I feel for you :(
I feel for you. When they sold the Bartons Candy store on Fairfax Ave, the people who bought it seemed to be more interested in schvitzing to their friends and neighbors knowing they bought a famous Jewish institution then in running a business, so after a month it closed for good. My Mom had worked in Bartons when it originally occupied a larger space that include where the now defunct Eat a Pita table area stands.
But thats part of the overall demise of a once nostalgia inspiring place like Fairfax into another run of the mill street. Along with such things as the Israel Walk and Rancho Park Festival Site.
Im not yet 50 and yet I feel as weepy as an 80 year old remembering the good old days.
Yes losing old haunts is sometimes as painfull as loosing touch with a touch with an old friend.
GS,
Sometimes change isn't what we want.
CM,
Our Valley isn't what it was. Oh well.
Anonymous,
My grandparents used to live at Crescent Heights and Laurel. I used to walk to Fairfax all the time.
And I have very fond memories of The Walk. It was special.
I know what you mean! A place on Clearwater Beach went through a change of ownership and destroyed a grouper recipe in the process. That was the only reason I went there. I don't anymore.
All sorts of companies mess with what has worked, to their detriment, and reaped the consequences. *Can you say "New Coke"?* As a floor tech I have used any number of floor waxes over the decades. One place bought us something called "24K" which was a spectacular finish. It wnet on easy, dried to a hard shine (not the sort of odd matte that most waxes do before they are buffed), and buffed to an even prettier look. It was perfect.
The manufacturer tinkered. The product became a hellish thing to use and no longer would take a buffing or hold a shine. I called our company, spoke to the President (a former floor man, himself), and complained about the new stuff we were now buying. We stopped buying it after that. A good product that needed no fixing was destroyed. Just so somebody could tinker. Yeesh!
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