Are H&H Bagels and VooDoo Doughnut Worth The Hype?
Two breakfast-food-with-a-hole heavyweights opened in Miami this week
People from Portland love to tell anyone within earshot, “Well, I’m from Portland, so I KNOW great donuts. It’s in the angst.” This is because Portland is home to VooDoo Doughnut, which Portlanders use to fuel up for long days of protesting and ethical non-monogamy.
New Yorkers, on the other hand, are very humble about their bagels, and never tell us how we have no good bagels in Miami. Or how New York has magical tap water that in addition to curing cancer and balancing the federal budget, also makes perfect bagels, like the ones they have at H&H Bagels.
Through a once-in-a-lifetime hole in the breakfast food continuum, both VooDoo Doughnut and H&H Bagels opened Miami locations this week. So I set out to see if either is worth the hype. Or, more importantly, worth the lines.
Are either of these places worth the lines?
No. But a bagel would have to be covered in 24 karat gold and come with a house in Tahiti to be worth waiting in line.
Are both these places good? Yes. H&H Bagels serve what New Yorkers might call a “pretty decent” bagel, lightly crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. VooDoo has donuts packed with sugar that Portlanders would call “almost as good as heroin.” If you happen to be in the neighborhood, I highly recommend trying either one. If the line at H&H extends to the door, keep moving, your time is too valuable, even if you’re a “content creator” unemployed.
VooDoo’s line seems to move pretty quickly, though that depends on how many teenagers at the front of the line keep asking them to explain a Banana Cream Pie.
What to eat and drink: H&H Bagels’ owner told me they are famous for their bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich, which is the bagel shop equivalent of a regular restaurant telling me “You’ve gotta try the octopus.” They all say it. It’s actually written into their lease. If you’re not into pork try getting a bagel toasted with butter and a side of hot honey. Drizzle the honey on top, and it’ll change how you eat bagels. If you hear “hot bagels!”, it’s not a sign to duck because people are about to start throwing bagels at you. It means they’re dumping a whole paddle of hot bagels into the bagel case, in which case change your order immediately and get one of these.
VooDoo Doughnut has a spinning case of donuts next to its registers that I’m pretty sure is sponsored by a diabetes medication. The special-to-Miami donuts are good – the teal-and-pink Miami Viceberry is a fun blueberry item that tastes kinda like blue Gatorade on a donut. The other famous donuts are the Old Dirty Bastard, topped with Oreo crumbles and peanut butter; the Maple Blazer Blunt, which looks like a blunt with red sprinkles, and Oh Captain, My Captain, which comes with a desk you can stand up on Captain Crunch.
The space: If you’re getting VooDoo Doughnut, you better have somewhere to go and eat it. And someone to carry your coffee for you. Because while there are 675 different types of donuts, there are also zero tables. There’s also a skeleton posted up in the corner with the mandated-by-Dade-County-code neon sign reading “The Magic is in the Hole.” Take THAT, Bodega.
H&H Bagels looks like, you’ll never believe this, a bagel shop. Most of the customers get their food to go, and since there’s only about four tables and a counter with a few seats, you probably should too. It’s by no means a place you “linger.” The owner told me they’re going to have a tablet for bagels-to-go orders only, for those who don’t want to wait behind people asking, “Are your lox fresh?” in VERY strong New York accents.
Pro tip: Order ahead. This goes for both spots, who both offer mobile ordering options.
Expect to pay: Donuts at VooDoo run about $3-4 each, coffee is the same price. A simple bagel with butter at H&H is $4, a fact that would make my mother plotz, if she were still able to plotz. A sandwich ranges from $7-$10.
How’s the parking: H&H Bagels is in a Pinecrest strip mall, so it’s fantastic. VooDoo Doughnut is in Wynwood, so it’s abysmal. The good news is you can work off at least two bites of that donut walking back to your car.
@hhbagels // 11311 S. Dixie Hwy., Pinecrest
@voodoodoughnut // 2401 NW 2nd Ave., Wynwood