I have an imitation bagel. It's called a matzo

New York City bagel store owners went whining to the newspaper about how hard it is to make a profiit at Passover. Sorry. But, it isn't easy for me to work up any sympathy for people who charge upwards of a dollar seventy five for a lousy bagel with a shmear.

For New York's Bagel Shops, Passover Week Is No Festival

Money quote:

If it is hard to be a Jew on Christmas, it may be even tougher to run a bagel shop at Passover... "Every bagel shop owner knows about it, and we have to prepare," said Benjamin Choi, the owner of Lenny's Bagels at 98th Street and Broadway, who will roll about 10 percent fewer strips of yeast-laden dough and step up production of macaroons. "Otherwise, you'll have lots of leftovers and little profits."

Yeah, life sucks. And no other business has seasonal complications.

Unrelated pile-on: My number one bagel store pet peeve is this: When you order a coffee does the clerk fill your cup for you, and mix in the sugar and milk? No In more and more places, you're expected to pay $1.50 or more for a foul-tasting cup of brownish, brackish water and not only that, you have to make the coffee yourself. In my local bagel shop, I fill up the cup. I mix in the sugar, and I add the milk. And for this high privlage I pay $1.50.

That's outrageous. I suppose it's only a matter if time before we're asked to scramble the eggs, and shmear the cream cheese, too.

Exception: Brooklyn Bagels on Nostrand Avenue and Ave P, makes the best bagel shop coffee in the entire known civilized world, they charge only one dollar, and get this: they make it for you.