Gobba-gouling at Bagel Gourmet
Kimchi quesadillas. Sushirritos. The Cronut. Fusion cuisine, or the combination of elements from different culinary traditions, has been around since the beginning of trade. Modern fusion cuisine, however, is typically considered to have begun in the 1970s, and celebrity chefs like Wolfgang Puck and Roy Yamaguchi are often credited for popularizing the concept. Puck, for example, drew from his European upbringing and his affinity for Asian foods to devise unique dishes that rapidly grew in popularity, spreading from California to across the United States. Arguably one of the most important restaurants to come out of this revival of the fusion food movement is Providence’s own Bagel Gourmet Olé.Bagel Gourmet is a fixture of Brown campus’ many eateries. It’s such an amazing restaurant, the powers that be deemed it necessary to plant three of them on Brown’s campus. In fact, it may even seem a little suspicious that all three are under one mile from the center of campus.Of course, not everyone sees this proximity as odd. Aryaman Dutta '21 eats at Bagel Gourmet every morning and believes there is nothing unusual about the location. “They aren’t really that close to each other. Like one’s really south and one's really north. It’s so they can reach a large number of people. Wherever you live you can see BG and get those bagels,” said Dutta.
However, look a bit closer and one will notice something odd about the layout of the three Bagel Gourmets -- they form a triangle! Crazy, right? This bagel triangle has led to some odd rumors floating around campus.One student, who asked not to be named fearing for his own safety, claimed that the Illuminati is involved.“The Illuminati is trying to form a summoning triangle around Brown. Waterfire is definitely involved -- it’s clearly a summoning ritual. So on the 303rd annual Waterfire, the three Bagel Gourmets will ignite in flame and send fiery beams toward the sky and Brown will be lifted into the heavens.”Outrageous theories like this abound across the student body. Nick Smith, a Middle Eastern studies concentrator, was willing to go on the record about his beliefs. “If you find the midpoint of the three points of the Bagel Gourmet triangle, you end up right where Waterfire is held so, yeah, I don’t know but you do the math,” Smith said.Other students have less sinister, but equally fantastical theories about the existence of the triplets. Mariko Kishimoto, an engineering concentrator, believes the three restaurants are a result of a family feud. “It used to be one Bagel Gourmet owned by three brothers, triplets in fact, and one day they got in a huge fight, couldn’t work with each other anymore, and decided to split,” she claimed.Regardless if the Illuminati or a family feud has something to do with this, it does seem odd that there are three of these restaurants in such close proximity to one another. A little digging reveals even more interesting information: the website of Bagel Gourmet Café makes no mention of the other two restaurants. In fact, there is no official Facebook page or website for any of the three Bagel Gourmets, save for Bagel Gourmet Café’s outdated website.While the Illuminati might not be involved, most people would probably agree that there is something suspicious about the Bagel Gourmet Café website making no mention of the other two restaurants.
Blog attempted to reach out to the Bagel Gourmets to resolve this mystery. Their answers only raised new questions.Blog first reached out to an employee of Bagel Gourmet Olé. The employee refused to give his name, even after multiple requests. This unnamed employee seemed to settle the question of the three restaurants’ relationships to each other. He said that “it’s the same owner” that runs all three. However, he was unable to answer why the three had different names. Lastly, when asked about the suspicious website of Bagel Gourmet Café, and Bagel Gourmet Olé’s absence, he said “you want every answer, then you call in the morning.”Blog then reached out to an employee of ten years at Bagel Gourmet Café. This employee was unsure if there was one owner for all three restaurants and said to contact Café’s owner to find out. However, contacting this owner seems to be very difficult. To reach the owner, he said, “you can drop off information with your name, your phone number, and your exact questions at any of the three locations. His name is Richard and he’s on vacation. Hopefully, when he gets back he will give you a call back.” It’s odd that this employee is unsure if Richard owns the other two locations, but also claims Richard is reachable at any of the three locations. The employee was also unsure of when Richard would be back. “He’s gonna come back, but he’s never usually here,” he said of Richard. The employee also warned that Blog was unlikely to receive a call back. “If I take your message, you’ll be one of the hundreds of people who leave notes for him. He doesn’t really get back to them. He gets hundreds of phone calls. Make sure you do something very attractive to get his attention.” Richard sounds like a very busy man.Fellow Blog writer Austen Royer heard the interviews with these two employees and believes something does not add up. “There’s some really sketchy stuff going on there. There’s some suss material flowing in and out of these restaurants if they don’t want to answer your questions. I don’t want to say it…but probably the mob–there’s probably some gobba-gouling going on there.” Perhaps the Bagel Gourmets are not part of some Illuminati summoning ritual, but instead part of a money laundering-mob scheme.But in the end, does it really matter if there’s mob activity if Bagel Gourmet’s delicious? When it really boils down to it, what would you rather have? A safer city, or bagels? I prefer to choose bagels. Images via, via, and via