{"id":790493,"date":"2026-05-12T06:34:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T06:34:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/790493\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T06:34:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T06:34:25","slug":"sorry-nyc-joey-chestnut-declares-long-island-bagels-the-best","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/790493\/","title":{"rendered":"Sorry NYC, Joey Chestnut declares Long Island bagels the best"},"content":{"rendered":"

Competitive eater Joey Chestnut <\/a>declared Long Island\u2019s bagels \u201cmight be the best\u201d after chowing down on a sampling of local bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches \u2014 which he washed down with 26 bowls of soft-serve ice cream.<\/p>\n

The perennial Nathan\u2019s Hot Dog Eating Contest champ\u2019s frank admission could spark some red-hot debate in the Big Apple, where confident New Yorkers might toast his buns for daring to claim there are better bagels outside of the five boroughs.<\/p>\n

\u201cLong Island bagels, I feel like they might be the best,\u201d Chestnut, 42, told The Post after his BEC-on-bagel tour of the island in April. \u201cYou\u2019re getting a little different, little bit better \u2026 It\u2019s kind of cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Competitive eater Joey Chestnut, seen with Robke\u2019s owner Louie Selvaggio, GOAT USA founder TJ Cristina, declared Long Island bagels \u201cmight be the best\u201d after a recent tour. GOAT USA<\/p>\n

But the California native consumer claims that any local rivalry between the burbs and the boroughs means very little outside of the Empire State \u2014 where outsiders would view them all as simply \u201cNew York bagels.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Chestnut\u2019s unannounced April trip through Nassau and Suffolk included stops at four breakfast spots: Dominick\u2019s Deli in New Hyde Park \u2014 a spot also well known for its chicken fingers \u2014 along with Syosset\u2019s Bagel Master, Kerber\u2019s Farm in Huntington and Wally\u2019s Bagels of Babylon.<\/p>\n

He received a hero\u2019s welcome.<\/p>\n

\u201cCompetitive eating \u2014 it\u2019s kind of weird. We all know this,\u201d Chestnut laughed.\u00a0\u201cBut the people who really think it\u2019s weird, they don\u2019t recognize me, the people who do recognize me, they\u2019re always good people, and they\u2019re happy, and I\u2019m just super lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n

When it comes to Chestnut\u2019s BEC order, he rarely goes outlandish and typically stays in the respectable realm of adding just salt, pepper and hot sauce.<\/p>\n

Joey Chestnut takes a bite out of a bacon, egg, and cheese bagel sandwich while holding another wrapped in foil. GOAT USA<\/p>\n

Sometimes he\u2019ll toss on avocado, which is also a polarizing favorite of Islanders phenom Matthew Schaefer<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI love a good garlic bagel \u2026 sometimes an everything bagel,\u201d Chestnut said.<\/p>\n

Hot doggin\u2019 it<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chestnut was lured out to the island by GOAT USA clothing co-founder TJ Cristina of East Williston, who first caught the competitive eating GOAT\u2019s attention online by streaming a small staff hot dog eating contest in 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe answered our DMs and said, \u2018Guys, this is unbelievable, \u2018\u201d Cristina recalled.<\/p>\n

After years of back and forth, they were finally able to schmear a little love on LI\u2019s bagel and food scene<\/a> in person.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that Long Island is putting out the greatest of all time bagels,\u201d said Cristina, whose brand will be selling bacon, egg, and cheese shirts this summer.<\/p>\n

Chestnut finished his day at the GOAT USA Riverhead outlet store, where he participated in a friendly vanilla soft-serve ice cream eating contest <\/a>against four workers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know how seriously he was going to take it \u2026 but five minutes before we started, he was doing these warm-ups for his jaw,\u201d said Robke\u2019s owner, Louie Selvaggio, who officiated the competition<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe took it as seriously as you could. He went all out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cheatnut, 42, will next compete in the Nathan\u2019s Hot Dog Eating Contest on Coney Island. GOAT USA<\/p>\n

Chestnut downed 26 bowls in six minutes \u2014 other competitors combined for 25.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey almost beat me, and it was fun,\u201d Chestnut claimed, adding that ice cream is a heck of a lot harder to scarf down than hot dogs, as \u201cit changes your body temperature.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy throat was hurting. My stomach was really cold for a while,\u201d Chestnut added, saying that packing down the dairy after for BEC sandwiches \u201cwasn\u2019t the worst\u201d flavor crossover.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just weird to eat ice cream fast. Your whole life, you eat it slow. So it\u2019s weird to eat ice cream with a sense of urgency.\u201d<\/p>\n

Selvaggio described Chestnut\u2019s determination \u2014 he previously set a record for 25.5 ice cream sandwiches in 2018 \u2014 as like nothing he had ever seen in his entire life.<\/p>\n

What kept Chestnut from<\/a> freezing up on the big Long Island stage was that \u201cyou find reasons to do it, instead of finding reasons not to do it,\u201d the pro eater said of playing through the pain.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The champ toured Nassau and Suffolk, downing 26 soft-serve bowls after his bagel feast. GOAT USA<\/p>\n

\u201cActually, I had ice cream last week,\u201d he chuckled.<\/p>\n

Next, Chestnut will turn his attention to what will be an especially patriotic Nathan\u2019s Hot Dog Eating contest on America\u2019s 250th birthday on Coney Island.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though I\u2019m 42, I\u2019m still going to be trying hard to make a record,\u201d said Chestnut, who downed a historic 76 hot dogs at the 2021 event.<\/p>\n

He\u2019ll be practicing on Thursday with 75 hot dogs, video work, and have a couple friends over to yell at me and not let me get lazy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI need to bring it,\u201d Chestnut said. \u201cYou have to be willing to go farther than anyone else in order to do what nobody else can do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Competitive eater Joey Chestnut declared Long Island\u2019s bagels \u201cmight be the best\u201d after chowing down on a sampling…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":790494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,52611,31124,9447,6335,8364,8365,10320,31125,6084,21609,5248,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,47719,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-790493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-bagels","tag-competitive-eating","tag-eating","tag-exclusive","tag-food-drink","tag-food-trends","tag-ice-cream","tag-joey-chestnut","tag-long-island","tag-long-island-city","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-sandwiches","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116560217182925186","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=790493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/790494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}