Walking into Bagelshop is going to make you want to say “Happy New Year” — and not just on Jan. 1. This week, the Donelson restaurant is launching “New Year, All Year,” its initiative to celebrate the various New Year traditions that different religions and cultures observe, introducing customers to those different customs. Given the state of political and cultural division in the city, the country and the world over, the series offers Nashvillians an opportunity to come together over food. And as we’ve come to expect from owners Max and Kayla Palmer, Bagelshop is doing this with delicious sandwiches.
The Palmers are reaching out to chefs across the city, asking them to create sandwiches that reflect their New Year celebrations — part traditional foods and part customs. The sandwiches will be served at Bagelshop over the various holidays, sometimes with the guest chefs helping make the sandwiches in house. Ten percent of all New Year sandwich sales will be donated to longtime local nonprofit The Nashville Food Project.
“We knew for some time that we wanted to collab with Nashville chefs,” Max says. “We wanted it to be more than one-off.”
New Year, All Year starts this week with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. (“After all, this is a bagel shop,” Kayla quips.) Bagelshop is partnering with Wes Scoggins, aka Jewish Cowboy — who’s known for pop-ups around town — while Scoggins launches his food truck. Scoggins is known for combining his Jewish heritage and his Texas roots in his food. His New Year, All Year sandwich is the Manzana Melaza, which features a sweet-and-sour braised brisket (a staple of many American Rosh Hashanah dinners) made with what he refers to as his secret weapon: apple molasses (aka melaza). “That is the star of the show,” he says.
Sweet foods are commonplace at a Rosh Hashanah table. They set the intention of having a sweet new year. Most people dip apples in honey as a symbolic sweet gesture before eating.
Using olive and apple wood, Scoggins finishes his brisket in his signature smoker. “I am really proud of my brisket,” he says. He’ll layer the brisket with fennel, slaw, horseradish and apple butter and place it on a bagel. When Scoggins speaks to the Scene, he’s leaning toward an everything bagel, but the rosemary bagel is a possibility too.
Scoggins is looking forward to not just making the brisket sandwiches with the Palmers, but to talking about brisket and Rosh Hashanah with customers. “This is important — this is why I am continuing Jewish Cowboy,” he says of his project, which he originally intended as just an excuse to serve brisket to his co-workers. “I did not think deeply about it in the beginning, but the responses in the last few years have told me this is of special importance.”
Kayla, who was not raised Jewish, has been learning Jewish traditions and appreciating Jewish foods since marrying Max. “We don’t get to share our Jewishness in our space that often, and with the High Holidays, now is our chance,” Max says.
“It’s kind of crazy how there’s almost a New Year’s celebration per month for the next year,” he says. “We just looked over the calendar and started matching New Year’s celebrations with chefs and reaching out to them and seeing what we can do.”
The Manzana Melaza sandwich by Jewish Cowboy
Up after Rosh Hashanah is Diwali, which this year starts at the end of October. Observed by many Hindus, Jains, Sikhs and Buddhists in India, Pakistan, Malaysia and beyond, Diwali is a festival of new beginnings, celebrating the triumph of good over evil and including a day of honoring one’s ancestors. Tailor’s Vivek Surti, a Nashville native who describes his award-winning cooking as “first-generation American,” wanted to create a sandwich that would capture the joyful Diwali celebrations in his family. Because Diwali is celebrated at home, many folks welcome friends and family to their houses. And where there are guests, there is food.
Surti is working with the Palmers to develop the Dabeli, a sandwich inspired by traditional Gujarati street food. Dabeli translates to “pressed,” and that’s what this is — a steamed, potato-and-spiced-filled glory topped with crunchy chili peanuts, onions and a sweet-tangy tamarind chutney and toasted ghee. The team has not yet decided what flavors of bagels they’ll use. (Surti suspects this might be the first Dabeli on a bagel in history.) “It’s a carb-on-carb sandwich,” Surti says.
After that, the team will work with Mesut Kelik, co-owner of Edessa Restaurant on Nolensville Pike, to create a sandwich for Newroz — the Kurdish version of Nowruz, celebrating spring and the arrival of a new year. Nashville has the largest Kurdish population in North America, and helping the city’s wider population appreciate Newroz traditions is part of the inclusivity the Palmers are fostering. After that, 2025 offers the opportunity for Chinese New Year, Songkran (Thai New Year) and many others.
The Palmers aren’t the only ones to see how acknowledging and honoring an inclusive calendar could be good for the city. “I introduced a resolution to recognize a multicultural calendar because the diversity of traditions and cultures is what makes Nashville and Tennessee truly special,” says Rep. Aftyn Behn (D-Nashville). “While it was unfortunately blocked by the Republican supermajority, it’s initiatives like [Bagelshop’s] ‘New Year, All Year’ promotion that highlight the richness of our city.
“By celebrating holidays like Rosh Hashanah, Diwali, and Kurdish Newroz,” Behn continues, “they remind us that Nashville’s strength lies in its multiculturalism and the unique contributions each community brings to our shared experience.”
