Just a couple months after opening a new brick-and-mortar location in Capitol Hill, bagel shop Call Your Mother is hitting the road — or at least a nearby parking lot.
The self-described “Jew-ish” deli that has garnered nationwide fame will launch a mobile bagel shop in a converted tourist trolley next week.
The pink and teal streetcar will be parked indefinitely in a Bethesda lot next to Suburban Hospital while it test drives the new business model. Washington City Paper first reported the news.
Co-owner Andrew Dana says they’ll initially start serving bagels to workers at the hospital before fully opening to the public. “As soon as we feel confident that it works and we’re hitting those check marks, then we’ll open,” he says, though they don’t have an exact date yet.
Dana says the trolley has been in the works for about nine months. He and co-founder Daniela Moreira got the idea after they met a fellow business owner at a conference who runs a champagne truck.
“We just started combing through Craigslist for old vehicles that we could flip into some sort of bagel bus,” he says. That’s how they found an old orange-and-green trolley that was once used for tours of the city, which they had retrofitted for culinary use and painted in “Call Your Mother colors.”
The trolley will serve Call Your Mother’s regular menu along with hot and iced coffee, but espresso drinks won’t be available given the setup.
Dana says they considered holding off due to the ongoing coronavirus crisis, but opening the Capitol Hill location in the middle of a pandemic made them realize it was possible.
“It showed us that we could do it,” he says. Call Your Mother hasn’t laid off any of its workers during the crisis, Dana says, and has continued paying their full-time wages while operating with a smaller number of employees at each location.
“We have a lot of people to fill these spots and we’re able to bake these bagels, and Capitol Hill has gone just absolutely amazing thus far, so it encourages us to keep the party rolling,” he says.
In addition to that location and their spot in Park View, they’ve also got a Georgetown shop in the works.
Dana says they chose to park the trolley in Bethesda in part because he grew up going to Bethesda Bagels and has fond memories of the area as a kid.
“I think this is far enough away from their locations where we’re not stepping on their toes but in an area where there’s enough office workers and residential where I think it could really work,” he says.
After the trolley opens, Dana says they may roam around and try out different neighborhoods, or they might just stay put depending on demand. “I think in a perfect world, it just goes really well in Bethesda and we don’t drive that trolley around pretty much ever,” he says. He says they’re making those decisions as they go, and are considering offering the trolley for events and weddings, or eventually adding other trolleys.
If they do end up driving it around the city, Dana notes that parking might be tricky as the trolley is much larger than the average food truck. “It is a long trolley,” he says. “So, good luck parallel parking it, but besides that, nice and a slow and you can go anywhere.”
