Ballston Went From No Bagel Shop to a Bagel Row in One Year. Here's How the Three Shops Differ

The sign on the door at 4300 Wilson Blvd reads, "Bagels. Not sandwiches." ARLnow reported that line from the PopUp Bagels storefront, which sits between Ballston's two other new bagel shops. Call Your Mother is at 4000 Wilson Blvd and Bagel Uprising is at 901 N. Glebe Road.

The sign is a useful guide to the whole stretch. Two bagel shops opened on this short stretch of Ballston in July, PopUp scheduled its grand opening for Nov. 6, and the three are very different kinds of places. One is a deli that sells bagels by the piece. One is a classic boiled-bagel sandwich counter. One sells whole hot bagels by the bag with a tub of schmear for dipping. Which one you want depends on what your morning looks like more than on which bagel is "best."

After a three-year gap, three shops between July and November

Ballston went without a bagel shop after Bruegger's Bagels closed in 2023. ARLnow's October coverage traced how fast that changed in 2026. Call Your Mother opened in early July, Bagel Uprising followed later that month, and PopUp Bagels set its grand opening for Friday, Nov. 6.

Call Your Mother opened on Tuesday, July 7. According to ARLnow's opening-day story, the line wrapped out the door during the morning and lunch rushes that day. Bagel Uprising opened three weeks later, on Tuesday, July 28. PopUp, a Connecticut-based chain, came to Arlington after opening in Georgetown and Bethesda. A spokesperson told ARLnow the company was "excited to continue the fun at our latest location in Arlington."

The shops didn't take long to build a following. In ARLnow's 2026 Readers' Choice poll, with voting from Sept. 3 to Sept. 16, Bagel Uprising won best new restaurant in Arlington with 194 votes, or 26.0%. Xi'an Famous Foods had 188 and Wood and Iron had 106. A shop that had been in Ballston for about six weeks when voting opened beat a well-known noodle chain by six votes.

A sandwich, a bag, or a single bagel

The three shops line up with three different reasons to want a bagel.

Call Your Mother is a deli that also sells plain bagels. Its online menu for Ballston lists sandwiches like the Bacon Sun City at $10.70 and the Royal Palm at $12.80. Bagels come one at a time for $2.50 or three for $7.00. That flexibility makes it the easiest choice when one person wants a full breakfast sandwich and someone else just wants a sesame bagel to go.

Bagel Uprising is a classic bagel-sandwich counter. ARLnow's opening coverage highlighted "The Breakfast Spud," made with egg, ham, hashbrowns and cheese, and a Reuben. The same story reported that the everything bagel makes up about half of sales at the original Del Ray shop. The brand's online ordering page lists a Build Your Own Bagel at $1.75, an Egg & Cheese Bagel from $6.50 to $9.25, Etelbina's Avocado BLT at $8.75, and a Bagel Party at $32.00. Those prices are listed for the brand as a whole and may not be specific to the Ballston shop.

PopUp Bagels sells bags of bagels, not breakfast sandwiches. ARLnow reported that bagels are sold only by the bag, starting at $15 for three bagels and a tub of cream cheese or butter, with flavors that rotate weekly. The company calls its approach "Grip, Rip and Dip." You get whole hot bagels and tear pieces off to dip in the schmear. The brand's general menu lists plain, salt, sesame, everything and poppy bagels, plus classic and rotating schmears.

The price difference makes more sense with the formats in mind. Three plain bagels cost $7.00 at Call Your Mother, and PopUp's three-pack starts at $15. PopUp's price includes a full tub of schmear, though, and PopUp doesn't sell single bagels or sandwiches. A bag of hot bagels and a tub of schmear to share at the office or a weekend table is a different purchase from one breakfast sandwich.

Three different doughs

Each shop also makes a different kind of bagel.

Call Your Mother's founders, Daniela Moreira and Andrew Dana, started at DC farmers markets and opened their Park View flagship in fall 2018. The company describes its bagel as honey-kissed and somewhere between New York and Montreal styles.

Bagel Uprising started in fall 2015 because its founders saw a lack of authentic boiled-and-baked bagels in Del Ray. They debuted at the Four Mile Run Farmer's Market, did pop-ups in local restaurants, and opened a permanent Del Ray shop in 2019. Its bagels are sized like traditional New York bagels. ARLnow reported that the Ballston location is veteran-owned and makes a five-ingredient dough of flour, brown sugar, malt, yeast and salt, boiled and baked on-site every day.

PopUp's first bagels came out of Adam Goldberg's backyard in Westport, Connecticut. The company says it aims for a crisp crust, a soft inside and seeds in the right proportion. That focus fits the format. A bagel you eat by tearing it open and dipping it, without fillings, depends entirely on its crust and texture.

They keep different hours

The posted hours separate the three shops as much as the menus do.

Call Your Mother opens first, at 6:30 a.m. every day. On weekends it also stays open an hour later than it does on weekdays. Bagel Uprising's Ballston page lists 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. every day. ARLnow's July opening story gave a 3 p.m. close, so the shop's own page is the one to check for current hours. PopUp's Ballston location page lists the latest close of the three, at 4 p.m. daily. That's two hours past Bagel Uprising's daily close, which helps if you want a bag of bagels for a gathering later in the day.

Hours and prices on a shop's own website can change without notice. Check before you go, especially on holiday weekends.

Ordering ahead at each shop

Each shop has a way to order ahead.

• Call Your Mother: The Ballston location page links to online ordering, where the sandwich and bagel menu is posted.
• Bagel Uprising: The main site links to its own online ordering and says those orders carry no third-party fees or markups.
• PopUp Bagels: The company site encourages pre-orders so you don't have to wait. Its "About" page also says its lines move fast.

The ordering style matches each shop's format. At Bagel Uprising, ordering ahead means your sandwich is built and ready when you arrive. At PopUp, a pre-order means a bag of hot bagels and a tub of schmear are waiting. At Call Your Mother, you can mix both kinds of order in one trip, sandwiches for some people and loose bagels for others.

The three shops also cover different hours. Call Your Mother opens first at 6:30 a.m., Bagel Uprising has the sandwich menu that won Arlington readers over, and PopUp lists the latest posted close at 4 p.m.

Bagel Uprising came to Ballston from Del Ray, and a lot of the best new places on this side of the river come from just down the road. If you're thinking about a move between Arlington and Alexandria and want to talk through how the two compare day to day, Jennifir Birtwhistle has spent more than 20 years helping Northern Virginia families with those decisions. Let's Connect.