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The Rice Thresher
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by Mark Berenson thresher editorial staff They may still be round with a hole in the middle, but plenty has changed with the new bagels that College Food Service is providing in the residential colleges. New York Bagel Shop, a local bakery, now produces the bagels served in the colleges instead of Einstein Bros. Bagels, a national chain that has supplied the bagels since the beginning of the 1998-'99 school year. According to Resident Dining Manager Julie Bogar, billing problems with Einstein made the change necessary. "We just had ongoing billing problems with Einstein's - the accuracy and the correctness," Bogar said. However, Bogar said she believes there has been no change in the quality of bagels. "We were really lucky to get New York bagels to deliver to us again," Bogar said. New York Bagel Shop delivered bagels to Rice in the early 1990s and stopped delivering for pragmatic reasons that have since been resolved. However, several students have sent e-mail to Food and Housing to either complain or ask questions about the new bagels. Every morning, New York Bagel Shop delivers about five dozen fresh bagels to each of the residential colleges. Rice buys plain, sesame seed, cinnamon raisin, banana nut, blueberry, whole wheat, chocolate chip and oat bran bagels. Rebecca Scheiner, assistant director of Food Operations, said the new bagels are a different type of bagel. "This bagel is a true Jewish bagel, and the other one is a very Americanized-type bagel," Scheiner said. New York Bagel Shop, which has been in Houston since 1975, is owned and operated by Ed Gavrila and his brother-in-law Jay Kornhaber, third-generation bagel bakers. New York Bagel Shop is both a retail operation and a wholesale business, and the company delivers bagels to several hospitals in the Texas Medical Center and hotels throughout the city every day. They bakery also supplies bagels to most synagogues in the Houston area. Some students said that besides just liking the new bagels, it is good that Rice is supporting a local business. "I think the new bagels are way better, but the most important thing is that Rice gave the bagel contract to a local, family owned business, not a national franchise," Will Rice college junior Matt Boles said. "These bagels are authentic New York Jewish bagels, not fluffy cakes from Einstein. If people want those bagels, they might as well eat a doughnut." "I think the plain bagels are very good," Baker College senior Hilary Scott said. Other students were unhappy with the change. "I hate the new bagels," Sid Richardson college sophomore Julia Buergler said. "The outsides are hard and they all taste like cardboard." Will Rice junior Dan Fort agreed. "If I wanted a New York style bagel, I would have gone to Columbia, not here," he said. Several students have complained that two of the most popular flavors of bagels - cranberry and cinnamon and sugar - were no longer available. Bogar said New York Bagel Shop does not make those flavors. Scheiner said she believes some students are unhappy because they have gotten used to one product. "I think what the students are seeing is a different bagel," Scheiner said. This is not the first time students have protested a change in bagels. In January 2000, after College Food Service switched to the Bagel Manufactory for a month, students demanded a switch back to Einstein. Scheiner suggested offering flavored cream cheese as a possible solution. "Maybe [flavored cream cheeses] would be a consideration to help the people who really want a more sweeter type of bagel," Scheiner said. Gavrila said he wants to keep students happy. "I am really happy to have the university's business, and I want to continue to have the business, and I bend over backwards to see to it that we take care of it and handle it," Gavrila said.
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