Golden Bagel, a casual food mainstay on Jefferson Street in Napa for over a quarter century, has a new owner who is quietly expanding the menu with an emphasis on from-scratch preparation.
There are more varieties of bagels and other baked goods, more salads and wraps, a full spectrum of sandwiches and smoothies and now such entrees as mac and cheese, burritos and enchiladas.
Reflecting the greater menu options, Golden Bagel’s name has been amended to include the word “café.”
“We are more than just bagels,” said the new owner, Nicole Yonai, a veteran of the restaurant industry.
Yonai said she is gradually refreshing the core menu. The goal is to keep long-time customers while attracting new people. “I wanted to do better, fresher food.”
She bought Golden Bagel a year ago from founders Dan and Julie Morris who operated the business for 27 years. She’s retained nearly all the employees, which is “critical to making sure guests feel comfortable coming in, knowing the place continues,” she said.
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Golden Bagel no longer uses mixes to speed up kitchen production, Yonai said. Most items are made from scratch.
One of her popular new items is The BottleRock — a bagel (there are 16 varieties to choose from) loaded with jalapeno cream cheese, avocado, bacon, scrambled egg and double cheddar tater tots – for $12. “I put as much as I could squeeze into one sandwich. It’s sorta like a burrito in a bagel,” Yonai said.
Prices have been tweaked here and there, but they remain “approachable” so that students and working people can afford a meal on the go, Yonai said.
Yonai has tried to add warmth to the dining environment. A railing that once ran the length of the counters is gone, surfaces have been repainted, and a display of gifts and snack treats fills a void near the entry. Blooming plants adorn each table.
“That’s so you don’t feel you’re entering in the middle of a cafeteria,” Yonai said of her alterations.
The outdoor patio is now bordered with shrubs. “Before you felt you were sitting in the parking lot,” Yonai said. She picked gold umbrellas to match the name of the business.
At 10 o’clock on a recent weekday morning, a steady stream of customers were picking up breakfasts to go and a young man waited for three smoothies. Four retired gents were drinking coffee and talking politics, while two other tables contained equally chatty groups, one speaking English, the other Spanish, who were eating breakfasts.
Jazz played in the background — “It just felt like a jazz morning,” given the forecast for light rain, said Yonai. She also plays soul singers Leon Bridges and Sam Cooke, Latin rock and occasional pop.
Yonai said she grew up in Pasadena, the product of parents with Mexican and Japanese ancestry. Her childhood was rich in family social events that celebrated food, which inspired her to a career in the restaurant industry.
She graduated from the hotel and hospitality management school at Cornell University, then rejoined the Hillstone Restaurant Group, her part-time employer during high school. She managed kitchens for Hillstone, including the Houston chain.
In 2013, she left Hillstone to run the culinary team at an independent restaurant, Thyme Café, in Santa Monica. Thyme was similar to Golden Bagel in that it operated seven days a week, serving breakfasts and lunches and also did catering, she said.
She moved to Napa Valley in 2018 and managed culinary operations at R+D Kitchen, another Hillstone property. Napa provided her with the sense of community that she had been looking for, Yonai said.
After four years at R+D, she bought Golden Bagel in 2022. “I thought if I’m going to work that hard, I ought to take on the additional responsibility of owner.”
Golden Bagel’s strong connection with Napans makes it a special place, Yonai said. “I have guests who are in here five, six, seven days a week. I have a guest who has been coming here since high school, and I just catered his daughter’s wedding.”
Yonai says she works six days a week, putting in 60 to 70 hours. “It’s non-stop, but it’s incredibly rewarding,” she said.
Business has grown over the past years, Yonai said. And now that the conversion of the former KFC space next door into a Starbucks is done, it should grow even faster, she said.
Golden Bagel has lost a few coffee customers to Starbucks, but it’s gained more customers who appreciate the freshness of Golden Bagel’s food menu, she said.
Golden Bagel is located at 3240 Jefferson St., between Dollar General and the new Starbucks, just south of Trancas Street. It is open weekdays from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. and from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekends. The café has an app for pre-orders which can be delivered to your vehicle.
You can reach reporter Jennifer Huffman at 707-256-2218 or jhuffman@napanews.com