The Beat Generation Bagel Shop That Didn’t Sell Bagels

Jay Hoppe and Leo Krikorian munch on bagels (from The Beach)
Extra Crispy‘s Judy Berman offers an illuminating scoop on the Coexistence Bagel Shop, a quintessential 1950s Beat hangout on Grant Avenue:
As eclectic as its clientele, the Bagel Shop was a unique hybrid of stereotypical Beat coffeehouse and real Jewish deli—one whose ‘oddly delicious macaroni salad’ the author Jim Harrison still remembered fondly decades later. ‘They had a cold counter and served sandwiches and coffee and beer and wine,’ says Brandon Loberg of San Francisco’s Beat Museum. He could confirm that a photo exists of Bagel Shop owner Jay Hoppe sitting at a table in the shop with The Place proprietor Leo Krikorian, ‘both munching on bagels.’
It seems likely that the image was a bit of an in-joke, though. A Chicago Daily Tribune reporter noted in 1958 that Co-Existence ‘never sold a bagel in its history.'”