It’s not the only bagel place in Los Angeles, but people I trust say Courage Bagels is worth the wait.
I waited in line in a quiet corner of Virgil Village in East Hollywood, a neighborhood where small, independently owned restaurants struggle to find affordable rent and longtime residents worry that the low rents might not last. Sandwiched between two groups of patrons, I did as any newbie would, eavesdropping. They were debating their sandwich orders the way fashion editors put together an outfit, wanting more than the sum of their parts. I revised my order with each comment I overheard.
After 20 minutes I considered leaving, and then again after 40, but then I realized the only thing more foolish than sticking around would be to leave without buying anything.
This is brunch in 2024. Chefs on a budget and younger customers looking to save money on dining out or find the next big thing are embracing the option to wait in line and then dine because no one wants to give up the fun, even if it takes longer. Customers are willing to compromise to get more, sometimes sacrificing things like ambiance for the opportunity to dine well. Sure, there are $24 wild Alaskan salmon roe sandwiches, but there are also $6 bagels and schmears.
The modern era of queue culture began, as far as I remember, with the first Shake Shack in Manhattan’s Madison Square Park in 2006. Suddenly, waiting became fun, with Shake Shack cameras filming the process. Now, lines are forming at everything from Bagel Subculture in Los Angeles to Doughnuts in Seattle to Michelin-starred Kasama in Chicago, where a sit-down tasting menu is offered for dinner, but people flock there for the daytime bakery and breakfast menu.
For most of our history, waiting in line for food has represented extreme scarcity, from bread lines during the Great Depression to food banks to this day. Today, waiting is a two-tiered system, with some blocks indicating hardship and people still lining up based on need, and other blocks indicating free time and people lining up of their own volition.
A quick look around the line at College Bagels reveals that most of the people waiting are young, a generation that is being forced to redefine the economics of adulthood. Some of them are earning less and working more than their parents’ generation. Some of them may still be living with their parents, and for many of them, homeownership is an unattainable dream. And they, and many of us in my generation, want to get out of home, wherever that may be, because home is often also where we work.
Standing in line gives us self-satisfaction for an hour, knowing our decision was correct. We’re waiting for the best bagels. We’re in the know; we know a little more than the person behind us in line. We feel special to be here, in a time when social media is making us feel bad. Standing in line gives us a chance to catch our breath, and the closer we get to being able to order, the better we feel.
Another plus is that I’m a generation older than the others in line. All this time, we’re not prisoners of timeline, we’re fellow waiters. While I wait, I talk to a woman with a cinnamon-colored dog, two Courage employees, and a Spanish man hoping his wife and young daughter will agree to go somewhere else. The demographic divides that are so entrenched in everyday life are more permeable here because of our shared experiences.
Getting positive feedback from what we buy is nothing new, but the double whammy of pandemic and inflation has now put food at the forefront of manufactured desires. Younger diners can’t wait to get out and about, only to find that their money can buy less than it used to. As I trudged to the ordering window, I couldn’t help but wonder if a second express line for loose bagels would cut down on the wait, or if Courage should hire more bakers or find a bigger venue. But then I stopped thinking: It all costs money, in an era when every aspect of running a restaurant is more expensive than it used to be.
Courage co-owner Chris Moss said he and partner Ariel Skye are, in fact, in the midst of planning to expand into an adjacent space to add more ovens, but it’s been almost four years since they got there. “Slow growth is healthy growth and keeps the company strong,” Moss said. They have no outside investors and plan to stay that way.
Plus, queuing helps build business. In a way, I’m a human poster boy, doing my part to support independent food businesses in a time when survival is by no means certain. Hooray for gritty culinary newcomers. We queue, and in doing so, we’re reshaping and expanding the very definition of dining out.
Karen Stabiner is a journalist and author, most recently, of Generation Chef: Risking It All for a New American Dream.
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