Call Your Mother Deli opens in Fort Collins, breaks sales record

North College Avenue has become a regular breakfast spot for many Fort Collins residents. This morning tradition started about a month and a half ago with the arrival of a beloved bagel shop.

Call Your Mother Deli is a Washington, D.C., based chain that serves “Jew-ish” foods — with bagels — under marketing clad in a bright pink and blue tones. The deli hosted a grand opening in Fort Collins Oct. 27.

Opening day went so well that the deli broke a three-year sales record in just its first week. To prepare for the Fort Collins location’s debut, they learned and adapted from the fanfare of earlier openings in Colorado, such as the Boulder location, which opened in September.

“We’ve been in Colorado now for almost three years,” said Chris Bongiovanni, the district manager for Call Your Mother Deli. “To break a three-year record in our first week, it’s pretty awesome. Our training program made it easy; we were in here for two weeks before we even opened the restaurant.”

Drawing from previous locations in Colorado, Call Your Mother Deli planned for the increased demand during opening week. But despite the increased demand, opening week went largely without incident.

“They were really good at getting everything out fast, even though there were about 50 people in line going out of the building,” said Maya Segal, a Call Your Mother customer.
“Since they broke the Colorado record their first week, our goal is to continue to break that record; we want to break that record at all of our locations,” –Chris Bongiovanni, Call Your Mother Deli Colorado district manager
The plan to introduce Call Your Mother to Fort Collins had been in the works for a year prior to opening day, and the plan to open more locations in Colorado was even older. Call Your Mother used a third party to plan logistics for opening new locations in Colorado, including Fort Collins, which marks the sixth.

“We used a company called Epic,” Bongiovanni said. “They’ve built out all of our locations for us here in Colorado, and because this was their sixth build for us, it was easier than when we first came to Colorado. It’s been seamless. There’s always going to be some type of issue with permitting or getting supplies in for the build, but there’s been nothing out of the ordinary for this build.”

Call Your Mother started in 2018 at a farmer’s market in Washington, D.C., by founders Andrew Dana and Daniela Moreira. Dana said he drew inspiration from his Jewish heritage when tailoring his cooking style. Moreira, on the other hand, grew up cooking meals with her family in Argentina before working in some of the U.S.’s finest restaurants. The two founders combined their techniques to create Call Your Mother’s signature menu.

“Almost everything is made in house, and if not, we source them from some super awesome partners like Z&Z, Logan’s Sausage and Liberty Delights,” Call Your Mother’s website reads.

There are plans to open an additional Call Your Mother location in Colorado in the future, partly in response to the success of the Fort Collins location. Possible markets have been considered but have not yet been finalized or released to the public.

“Since they broke the Colorado record their first week, our goal is to continue to break that record; we want to break that record at all of our locations,” Bongiovanni said. “There’s no (information) given yet on how many locations we’re going to open in Colorado. There are several on the books to be opened, but we just can’t tell people quite yet where we’re going to be opening.”

For now, Call Your Mother continues to operate in Fort Collins, serving bagels with a Jewish twist from North College Avenue and adding to the lineup of Fort Collins culinary staples.

“One of my coworkers told me about it,” Segal said. “She was like, ‘Oh my God, did you hear there’s a new bagel store opening up behind where we work?’ and I was like, ‘That’s so exciting.’”

Reach Robert Sides at life@collegian.com or on social media @RMCollegian.