Biden Makes First Restaurant Visit as President to Trendy D.C. Bagel Shop Call Your Mother

The presidential motorcade stopped at hit “Jew-ish” deli Call Your Mother’s Georgetown location yesterday, briefly blocking the front of the bright pink building so the most powerful man in the free world could enjoy a sesame bagel with cream cheese. The takeout order, which members of President Joe Biden’s entourage grabbed on the trip back from a Sunday service at Holy Trinity Catholic Church, marked the president’s first public visit to a D.C. restaurant since his inauguration four days earlier.

Biden’s casual stop for bagels and schmear so early in his presidency stood in contrast to predecessor Donald Trump, who made just one public appearance at a D.C. restaurant over his four-year term, at the BLT Prime steakhouse inside the Trump International Hotel.

According to a White House pool report, Hunter Biden, the president’s son, requested the bagel run. An NBC reporter’s shared video of the motorcade at the bagel shop to Twitter, which led “Call Your Mother” to become a trending topic on the platform’s Politics category. Within hours of the visit, Call Your Mother’s public relations team had written up a release that included photos of Secret Service agents waiting around for wood-fired bagels.

The visit shows that either the Bidens or members of their staff are plugged into D.C.’s food scene. Since opening its original location, in Park View, in fall 2018, Call Your Mother won recognition as one of Eater’s 16 best new restaurants in America. Jeff Zients, the COVID “czar” for the Biden administration, is an original investor and co-owner at Call Your Mother.

“Clearly, the new administration has a staff with good taste,” Washington Post food columnist Tim Carman tweeted.

The bagel brand has been a tear lately, rapidly expanding during a pandemic that’s required it to swap out its walk-up counter service that generated notoriously long lines for a preorder system with contact-free pickups. Call Your Mother has opened three new D.C. area locations during the COVID-19 crisis, with another planned for North Bethesda’s Pike & Rose complex.

Call Your Mother’s Georgetown location faced opening delays while acquiring zoning permits because some residents in the well-to-do neighborhood complained the company’s presence would attract crowds and traffic congestion. They probably didn’t envision the president causing the ruckus.

• D.C.’s Call Your Mother Deli Is One of Eater’s Best New Restaurants in America [EDC]
• Georgetown NIMBYs Claim Call Your Mother Bagels Will Bring Rats to Their Backyard [EDC]
• How D.C. Restaurants Handled an Inauguration Unlike Any Other [EDC]