It's Bagels is a name to chew over

The bagel shop with a name that isn’t really a name has quickly made a name for itself. It's been a viral sensation on Instagram, leading to queues on both sides of Regents Park Road in London's Primrose Hill.

It's Bagels is the matter-of-fact name for a shop that makes and sells, well, bagels. It calls to mind the legendary “Who’s on First?” comedy skit by Abbott and Costello. Lou Costello keeps asking what the name of the first baseman on the baseball team is and Bud Abbott, his unsympathetic sidekick, keeps telling him it's Who. Costello’s calm give way to fits of exasperation.

COSTELLO: Who’s on first?

ABBOTT: Yes

COSTELLO: I mean the fellow’s name

ABBOTT: Who

It makes you wonder what Abbott and Costello would think of It’s Bagels. The name, not the bagels.

COSTELLO: What’s it called?

ABBOTT: It’s bagels

COSTELLO: You already told me it’s bagels!

That exchange is expanded upon in this short sketch. In the video just below The English actor Oliver Fishman plays the exasperated sidekick to New Yorker-in-London Daniel Young of Young & Foodish. Or is it the other way around? As Abbott and Costello might have wondered, who really knows who is who?

Maybe Dan Martensen does. He's the American photographer who developed these bagels and gave the shop It's name or, you could say, the name It's. His are New York-style bagels, with the kind of tough shell and chewiness New Yorkers expect. A true New York bagel isn’t soft and pillowy in the manner of an East End beigel you might find on London’s Brick Lane. Fittingly you can’t cut all the way through an It’s Bagel bagel with your teeth alone. To tear off a mouthful you have to either pull your face away from the bagel, or pull the bagel away from your face.

Видео It's Bagels is a name to chew over канала youngandfoodish