Palm Beach County’s March Bagel Madness Challenge reaches its title game this week. As Final Four voting closes, the bracket breaks wide open and two bagel shops remain standing after a round that delivered an upset and a narrow escape.
As the tournament tightens, familiar themes take over. Lower seeds make noise, pressure games swing on turnout and loyal fan bases show up when it matters most.
What began as a Sweet 16 field now comes down to two distinct contenders, each advancing in different ways but for the same reason: Readers vote, habits hold and momentum decides who moves on.
Final Four recap
Bagels & delivered the round’s biggest upset, taking down Long Island Bagel rather handily with 62% of the vote.
The No. 8 seed controlled the matchup from start to finish, turning a lower‑seed semifinal into a decisive win and continuing one of the tournament’s most surprising runs.
Bagel Boyz advanced to the championship by edging Bagels With Deli with 52% of the vote. The No. 2 seed survived a competitive matchup, eking out just 58 votes more against a multilocation operation, holding off a late push from a brand with a wider footprint spanning the county.
Bagel Boyz, which operates a single shop in Jupiter, did just enough to move on and keep its title hopes alive.
With these results, the field narrows to two.
How voting works
Championship matchup: Bagels & (#8) vs Bagel Boyz (#2)
It’s a classic March finale. An underdog that keeps knocking off higher seeds faces a top contender that has navigated close games and survived pressure situations.
Bagels & reaches the championship with deep New York roots and a deliberately old‑school approach. Its owners, Nancy and Anthony Montelbano, trace their bagel lineage back more than six decades, beginning with Nancy’s father, who owned the original Strathmore Bagels in New York before running a long‑standing shop in the Long Island town of Huntington.
The operation remains hands‑on and intentionally contained. Bagels & produces hundreds of dozens of bagels daily and is especially known for its bialys, a labor‑intensive item that the couple said few shops still make properly.
Inside the dining room, the pace is unhurried and familiar. Conversations drift easily, routines hold and many customers have been coming for years. The Montelbanos point to long‑tenured staff, daily owner involvement and even water purification calibrated to New York standards as nonnegotiables.
Details: 6613 Boynton Beach Blvd., Boynton Beach, and 6556 Hypoluxo Road, Lake Worth, bagelslakeworth.com
Bagel Boyz advances to the finals as a single‑shop operation built on repetition, consistency and family tradition. Founded in 2004 by the O’Brien family, the Jupiter bagel shop grows out of a Saturday‑morning ritual in Philadelphia, where bagels anchor routine more than novelty. When the family moved to Florida and couldn’t find that experience, they created it themselves.
The formula stays fixed. Bagel Boyz kettle‑boils its bagels, using bread techniques and baking fresh throughout the day.
House-cured pastrami and turkey plus cream cheese spreads are made in‑house. Chef Amilcar, behind the grill for 15 years, is one of the best sandwich-makers around. A year later, I still fondly remember his creative take on adding eggs to my nova sandwich, bookending the salmon with one egg in each half.
Many customers have been coming for more than two decades, with newer generations cycling in alongside them. While it draws loyal longtime regulars, Bagel Boyz often feels louder and more kinetic, with Gen Xers and Millennials crowding the counter, lingering over sandwiches and turning breakfast into a scene.
Unlike multilocation competitors, the shop operates from a single address and leans into familiarity rather than footprint. The focus is execution, reliability and knowing regulars by name.
Details: 5430 Military Trail, Jupiter, bagel-boyz.com
Diana Biederman is the Palm Beach Post’s food and restaurant writer whose NYC apartment shared an alley with H&H for decades, although she preferred the smaller bagels sold at Zabar’s. Reach me at dbiederman@pbpost.com. Subscribe today and sign up for our free At the Table weekly newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Vote now as March Bagel Madness Challenge comes down to two
Reporting by Diana Biederman, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
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