National Bagel Day 2027 is on Friday

About National Bagel Day

National Bagel Day celebrates a bread with a long history. National Geographic traces the bagel to Jewish bakers in the region that is now Poland, where a boiled, ring-shaped bread called obwarzanek was already known in the Middle Ages. The earliest written mention of the bagel itself usually cited by historians is a set of Jewish community regulations from Kraków dated to around 1610. Boiling the dough briefly before baking is what gives a bagel its shiny crust and firm, chewy center.

Bagels reached the United States with Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe in the late 1800s. In New York, bagel bakers formed a union in 1907, and its Local 338 later represented the bakers at the city's bagel shops. Bagels went national after the middle of the 20th century, when bagel-making machines and pre-sliced frozen bagels sold in supermarkets put them within reach of shoppers far from New York.

The January 15 date is recent. In January 2019 Thomas', a bread brand owned by Bimbo Bakeries USA, registered January 15 as National Bagel Day with Chase's Calendar of Events, a long-running US reference book of special days. Trade reports at the time said the company wanted bagels to have their own date rather than one shared with National Pizza Day. The day has no government status, and no earlier founder of a bagel day is documented.

Sources: Bakery and Snacks: National Bagel Day is now official, thanks to Bimbo's Thomas' Bagels (January 11, 2019), National Geographic: The unusual history of the beloved bagel (2023), New America: The Socialist Roots of the Bagel (2020). How we check dates.

How to mark National Bagel Day

• Try making bagels at home: shape the rings, boil them for a minute or so on each side, then bake until deep golden.
• Visit an independent bagel bakery near you and try a style you haven't had, such as pumpernickel, bialy-style onion or salt.
• Compare a New York-style bagel with a Montreal-style one, which is smaller, sweeter and usually baked in a wood-fired oven.
• Set up a bagel bar for a family breakfast or office meeting with cream cheese, smoked fish, tomato, cucumber, capers and red onion.
• Read about the Jewish immigrant bakers of New York's Lower East Side and how their union shaped the bagel trade.

National Bagel Day dates