Call Your Mother’s Debut Dinner Menu Brings Pizza Bagels and Brisket Tacos to Bethesda

Hit “Jew-ish” deli Call Your Mother drops dinner tonight for the first time in its three-year history, tasking its North Bethesda location to test drive the third meal.

Call Your Mother’s months-old store at Pike & Rose complex (11807 Grand Park Avenue) rolls out the new nighttime menu on Tuesday, March 1. Daily dinner runs 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., for dine-in, takeout and delivery. Breakfast still starts at 8 a.m.

Pastrami brisket tacos and pizza bagels, which made brief, pre-pandemic appearances at the CYM flagship in Park View, show up for dinner in Bethesda alongside new hot subs, a tuna melt on rye, latkes, and its popular breakfast sandwiches served in colorful baskets. That means CYM’s wood-fired bagels are available for the first time at night (most of its six stores close by 2 p.m.).

The months-old location’s large size (2,300 square feet) makes it an ideal site to do dinner and experiment with new dishes, says co-founder Andrew Dana. A section of hot sandwiches, dressed with American and cheddar cheeses, herb mayo, pickles, and jalapenos, come on a homemade sub roll. Dana describes the hybrid bread as “if brioche and Challah had a baby.”

“The Jet Ski” loops in brisket and pastrami, while smoked turkey is the starring meat on the “The Manatee.” Another hot sub comes with cauliflower and latkes. The same ingredients reappear in a trio of tacos served on homemade corn tortillas.

Tim Casey/Call Your Mother

Tim Casey/Call Your Mother

Pending approvals, look for booze (another CYM first) in Bethesda soon. There’s no plans to roll out dinner at its other locations quite yet. With office (and actual) parties starting to make a comeback, CYM just unleashed catering capabilities for the first time.

Tim Casey/Call Your Mother

Bethesda’s “Bfast 4 Dinner” section includes two of its most popular sandwiches on an everything bagel: “Royal Palm” (plain cream cheese, smoked salmon, cucumbers, tomatoes, red onions, and capers) and “The Sun City” (local bacon or pastrami, bodega-style local eggs, American and cheddar cheeses, spicy honey).

For a break from carbs, there’s a dinnertime deli salad. The colorful bowl comes with romaine, arugula, cabbage, carrot, cucumber, pickled onion, bagel chips, and honey lime dressing. Add bacon, turkey, smoked salmon, tuna salad, whitefish salad, or smashed avocado.

Tim Casey/Call Your Mother

Co-owners Dana and 2017 Eater Young Gun Daniela Moreira debuted the smash-hit bagel brand in Park View in fall 2018, earning a spot on Eater’s 16 best new restaurants in America the subsequent year.

During the pandemic, Capitol Hill, Georgetown, a pink Bethesda bagel trolley, and Pike & Rose locales followed. The sixth D.C.-area shop opened in West End’s Yours Truly DC Hotel this year. Altogether, Dana says CYM makes and sells a whopping 13,000 bagels a day on weekends. One of its weekend customers is President Joe Biden, who swung by the Georgetown store after Sunday mass just days after his Inauguration.

Dana just missed Biden that day, but he did get to hand-deliver an order to former President Barack Obama. He likes his bagel plain and toasted with butter, says Dana.

“He’s as nice, funny and charismatic as you’d think, if not more,” he says.

• D.C.’s Call Your Mother Deli Is One of Eater’s Best New Restaurants in America [E]
• Call Your Mother Deli To Open in D.C.’s West End Neighborhood Next Year [Washington Business Journal]
• Biden Makes First Restaurant Visit as President to Trendy D.C. Bagel Shop Call Your Mother [EDC]