Bagels & Appetizing
The Bay Area's most obsessed-over New York-style bagel, three blocks from the Presidio — and the reason there's a line on Sacramento Street at 8am.
On Sacramento Street
Blue lettering on the window, hexagonal tile underfoot, and a freezer full of bagels for the week ahead — Boichik reads as a serious bagel shop the moment you stop at the door. Doors at 7:30; by mid-morning the sidewalk has a rhythm of its own.
3665 Sacramento Street · Presidio Heights
The Bakery
Boichik began in Berkeley as one person's refusal to accept that a proper New York bagel couldn't be made in California. Founder Emily Winston reverse-engineered the bagel she grew up on — hand-rolled, cold-fermented, boiled, then baked to a blistered, chewy shell — and the result became the most argued-about baked good in the Bay Area.
The Presidio Heights shop sits at 3665 Sacramento Street, sharing an address with Sociale's courtyard, and keeps proper bagel-shop hours: doors at 7:30 in the morning, done by early afternoon. It has become the neighborhood's default weekend ritual — a dozen mixed, a tub of schmear, and a walk into the Presidio.
Beyond bagels there are bialys — savorier, focaccia-like, topped with sautéed onion and poppy seed — plus a full appetizing counter: nova lox, house whitefish salad, pasture-raised egg salad, cream cheeses, and a vegan almond-based schmear that converts skeptics.
The Menu
A short menu done exactingly. Individual bagels run around $3.90, with 25¢ off each once you reach a dozen; sandwiches generally land in the $12–18 range depending on the fish.
Pricing is approximate and varies by item and location; availability of specific bagel varieties changes by the hour. See boichikbagels.com for the current menu and online ordering.
Specials & Standing Offers
Buy twelve or more and 25¢ comes off each bagel automatically. Mix varieties freely — the discount doesn't care.
Arrive near opening at 7:30 for the widest selection and bagels still warm. By late morning the popular varieties thin out.
The neighborhood ritual: a dozen mixed, a tub of schmear, and a walk up into the Presidio or over to Julius Kahn Playground.
Nova, whitefish salad, and cream cheeses can be bought by the container to build a spread at home.
The original Sixth Street bagel factory runs Mahjong Mondays and Saturday Bagel Talks — worth a trip across the bridge for the fully devout.
The almond-based cream cheese means a plant-based order here is a real order, not a compromise.
Know Before You Go
This is a morning business. There is no afternoon bagel run in Presidio Heights — plan accordingly.
Saturday and Sunday between 9 and 11 is peak. Go before nine, or after noon and accept a narrower selection.
3665 Sacramento holds both Boichik in the morning and Sociale's garden courtyard at night — one address, two neighborhood institutions.
Regulars swear by them and first-timers always skip them. Add one to the dozen and find out which camp you're in.
Photographs
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