JonnyBoy’s Bagelry and Jewish Delicatessen popped up on Entrada Avenue in Atascadero as the result of owner Emilie Goldstein’s longtime desires to enjoy Jewish delicacies in San Luis Obispo County and honor her dad’s roots.
“My dad was raised in the Jewish culture and faith. We would have bagels and lox on Christmas morning,” Goldstein said with a laugh. “He would talk about how you could go to all these places in LA and how much he enjoyed those specialties.”
Indelible marks of Goldstein’s late father, affectionately called “JonnyBoy,” are strewn about the bagelry. A cartoon sketch of his self-portrait greets customers through the yellow logo on the front window. Inside, Russian artist Misha Podryski’s 1965 impressionist painting of JonnyBoy as a youngster, watches over the shop.
“My grandfather was a dental professor at USC for quite some time … but before he was a professor, he was in private practice dentistry,” Goldstein said. “He had a patient who paid him in portraits of his kids.”
The bagel business almost naturally came to the culinary school-trained Goldstein. She’s owned and operated Bramble Pie Company next door since 2021. Her collection of staff trained in baking, pie-making, and wrangling a wood-fired oven help JonnyBoy’s be more than a bagelry.
JonnyBoy’s doles out Jewish classics like smoked whitefish salad available in tubs to take home or smeared on a house-made bagel with tomato, cucumber, onion, and capers. The main ingredient comes all the way from Banner Smoked Fish in Brooklyn.
Then there’s what the menu calls “Jewish Penicillin” that’s “just like bubbe’s”: matzo ball soup. During the summer, the soup is only sold as take-home quarts.
Hungry patrons can also nosh on potato latkes with house-made apple butter, chopped liver with corn rye bread from Bread Bike, a vegan chopped “liver” version made with lentils and caramelized onions, potato knish, popcorn laced with chicken schmaltz and chicken seasoning, corned beef Reuben, pastrami on rye, and of course, a plethora of bagels.
“You want a chewy exterior and a nice bready interior,” Goldstein said of the perfect bagel. “There’s going to be a malty flavor too. Our bagels are boiled in barley malt syrup and baking powder.”
Crafting bagels is a time-consuming process, she explained while her staff bustled behind her, completing orders. Bagel dough cannot simply be baked once it’s made. It must be shaped and boiled before it hits the oven. From Thursday through Sunday, Goldstein’s bakers prepare, boil, and bake bagels in varying shifts starting at 3 a.m. All bagels are made with organic high-gluten flour, and come in flavors like sea salt, cheddar jalapeño, poppy seed, sesame seed, French onion with Gruyere cheese and caramelized onion, and everything style.
The painstaking yet rewarding process behind making bagels causes delis like JonnyBoy’s to be a rare find in North County.
“Also, [bagels] don’t keep for very long,” Goldstein explained. “Unless you’re using additives and dough conditioners, they keep like two, three days tops. They’re not going to mold but their texture is not going to be good. So, there’s a lot of waste as well.”
Currently, JonnyBoy’s offers a small selection of cream cheeses. The bakers flavor readymade cream cheese with chive and onion, and strawberry. They also offer plain-whipped and a vegan versions of cream cheese. In the fall, Goldstein hopes to expand with pumpkin cream cheese and bagels.
She has plans for later this summer too. JonnyBoy’s is set to receive a hood system, which will allow for more hot cooking. In other words, the breakfast menu is bound to grow with egg dishes, Goldstein said. They’ll expand to other kinds of bagels once the bakers fully feel comfortable with the main flavors they’re already making.
Only 3-months-old, JonnyBoy’s is already gaining regulars. It makes a difference to see people get emotional over her food, Goldstein said.
“We had a lady come in and tear up. I think she said she was from Brooklyn, but she lives here now,” she said. “Her kids are growing up here and she was so excited to be able to show them a little bit of their culture that they’ve not really seen otherwise.”
An LA native until she was a toddler when her family moved to Atascadero, Goldstein returned to Southern California last September to sample bagels at the long-running Brent’s Deli—veering from her family’s usual bagel stop Nate ‘n Al’s.
Is she a fan of the now viral trend of scooped bagels, sparked by an LA man being refused service for his specific order? No one’s asked for one so far at JonnyBoy’s.
“Oh God! I’m not scooping any bagels,” Goldstein said with a laugh. “I guess I can kind of see it because if people want the sandwich to fit better and be more user-friendly, I could see scooping out some of the bread. Maybe there are some people who are watching their calories … but that’s doing too much, in my opinion.”
Staff Writer Bulbul Rajagopal will take all the potato latkes and French onion bagels to go. Send sharpened bread knives to brajagopal@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Jul 18-28, 2024.