PopUp Bagels, FOMO and the viral restaurant hype cycle
By 9 a.m. on Feb. 6, when many Atlanta residents are starting work, a line of people snaked down the Eastside Beltline.
That Friday morning, the packs of people braving the brisk weather had something other than work on their minds as they gathered before the fresh blue storefront of viral shop PopUp Bagels.
Just an hour after its grand opening, the line had grown nearly to Brewdog Atlanta as hundreds waited to “grip, rip and dip” the bagels that first built a following in Connecticut in 2020.
The bagel lines continued to stack up throughout the weekend while Atlantans investigated the shiny new attraction shipped directly from New York City.
It drew a sharp contrast against the regular flow of customers headed to locally founded bagel shop Emerald City Bagels, whose storefront is just a few hundred feet away.
Outrageous lines, waves of videos from influencers and the overall chatter about this escalating bagel battle all highlight an enduring shift in the restaurant ecosystem, where internet virality can influence the tides in an already competitive industry.
How many Beltline bagels is too many?
PopUp Bagels was founded in 2020 as a pandemic side hustle by Adam Goldberg, who made and sold bagels out of his kitchen and pop-ups near his home in Connecticut. Since then, it has grown in popularity and earned millions of dollars in funding and investments, according to trade publication Nation’s Restaurant News.
It now has 25 locations in the United States, and Atlanta will be its Southeast hub with five locations already planned for Georgia.
The Eastside Beltline happened to be its first opening Feb. 6 in a prime location within the Krog District and close to local shop Emerald City Bagels, which opened a second location on the Beltline in 2024.
Owners Deanna and Jackie Halcrow had known it was coming since last summer, they said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. They have a noncompete clause in their lease, Jackie said, but the problem is that PopUp Bagels’ location at 661 Auburn Ave. is part of the Krog District, so it has a different landlord from Emerald City.
There was nothing their landlord could do about it, Jackie Halcrow said.
“We’ve been spending most of our time trying to come up with all the reasons to not be concerned,” she said.
The Halcrows say they hope the differences between the two bagel concepts will help Emerald City stand out. For one, PopUp Bagels doesn’t slice or toast any of their bagels, and they don’t offer sandwiches. Emerald City also has a long history and customer base in Atlanta, from when it began as a pop-up to opening a brick-and-mortar in 2018.
“If (our customers) come see us as street bagels, then they’ll come see us as shop bagels,” Jackie Halcrow said.
And one relief is that sales for last weekend were actually better than the previous few weeks, she added.
The local franchisee for Georgia’s PopUp Bagels is Janvi Patel, an Alabama-native who attended college in Atlanta before moving to New York for several years. She fell in love with the concept and wanted to bring it back to Atlanta, especially because the restaurant scene is “thriving” and she felt PopUp’s product is so unique.
When asked in a previous AJC interview at the grand opening why they chose a location near Emerald City Bagels, Patel said, “We welcome all bagels, but we’re definitely on the different end of the spectrum with bagels obviously, because we don’t slice, we don’t do a sandwich, we’re just a whole bagel.”
Because the businesses have different landlords, “it’s not really about exclusivity,” said Edie Weintraub, the founder of Terra Alma, a firm that helps with development strategies and connects brands with retail spaces.
“Maybe it’s about demand,” she said. “If the neighborhood can support multiple shops, that’s a signal of foot traffic, routine, community habit. I think what matters most is the differentiation and the collaboration.”
More bagel shops could increase customers’ appetites rather than divide them, she said, referencing the phrase that “a rising tide lifts all ships.” And fortunately, it isn’t Emerald City’s first location, so they have a built-in customer base to rely on.
“I’m hopeful that it bolsters both of them, because obviously we love our home-grown brands, and I think we are very loyal as Atlantans to ones that have started in Atlanta,” Weintraub said.
At the end of the day, it’s just another challenge, Deanna Halcrow said. “Part of being a small business is changing and rolling with the punches.”
The social media hype machine strikes again
During PopUp Bagels’ opening weekend, Jackie Halcrow said she saw a mix of both negative and positive comments about their business flooding online. She runs the Emerald City social pages, but she’s never been interested in going viral or creating content that panders to an algorithm.
“It’s a whole new realm of marketing that apparently people understand how to work the algorithm and whatever,” Jackie Halcrow said. “And that’s not really something I planned into our dream of the bagel shop is learning that aspect of social media.”
PopUp Bagels has found major success in building its brand and social media presence, so an already much-anticipated concept blew up even more in Atlanta thanks to content from influencers and news outlets sharing the debut.
“I would say (influencer marketing) is the No. 1 driver of people to your restaurant nowadays,” said Lindy Simmons, an Atlanta and Athens-focused food content creator.
Simmons was one such person who attended PopUp Bagels’ grand opening. They didn’t pay her to come, she said, although they did offer free bagels. In her opinion, her role as an influencer is to share “something that I am super excited about.”
Simmons said she works to keep her page as “authentic” as possible by highlighting businesses she genuinely enjoys. That means also sharing news about restaurants she loves that haven’t reached out to her.
Social media hype doesn’t just benefit the large, corporate-backed chains. It can build momentum on its own, like it did with Bronx Bagel Buggy, a bagel shop that opened in 2024 in Chamblee and saw lines around the block after several food bloggers made videos about it.
Jackie Halcrow said they don’t pay influencers to produce content, but there are people who have organically made videos and posts about Emerald City Bagels of their own accord, she said.
Often, one video that goes viral will lead to a barrage of more content, like a feedback loop. Although Simmons said she believes PopUp Bagels’ products are genuinely good and deserve the attention, “the reason that line is so freaking long is no one wants to feel like they missed out.”
Therein lies the crux of restaurant hype. FOMO, or the fear of missing out, is a powerful motivator, especially when it comes to social media.
But that hype will end when the next trend or restaurant opening takes hold. Businesses can’t just rely on good marketing to sustain themselves.
“Influencer marketing can only get you hype,” Simmons said. “You have to actually really have a good product and good employees; you have to have good community standing to actually stand the test of time.”
Correction
This story has been updated to correct the distance of the PopUp Bagels line on Feb. 6.
About the Author
Olivia Wakim is a digital content producer on the food and dining team. She joined the AJC as an intern in 2023 after graduating from the University of Georgia with a journalism degree. While in school, she reported for The Red & Black, Grady Newsource and the Marietta Daily Journal.
