Cafe con Bagel

The cafe at 1332 Wisconsin Avenue NW opened in May 2023, and the combination it offers is specific enough to take a moment to explain. Pablo and Marcello Salazar, brothers who co-own the space, built a menu around two things that do not usually share a menu: bagel sandwiches made in the New York tradition and Bolivian coffee and empanadas from their family’s recipes. Pablo is from Bolivia. The coffee is altitude-grown. The empanadas are made from a recipe that has come down through the family. The bagels are made in house and treated with the seriousness the format requires.

The Federal Chorizo Bagel Sandwich is the signature: a toasted bagel with spicy chorizo and melted pepper jack cheese. The Steak con Queso uses chorrellana, caramelized onions prepared in the Bolivian style, alongside the steak and cheese. These are not fusion novelties, despite the combination. They are two things the Salazar brothers know well, put on the same menu because both are genuinely good. The empanadas come in beef, chicken, and cheese varieties. Two beef or chicken empanadas run ten dollars. Cheese empanadas are four fifty. The coffee program runs through Joe Coffee, a specialty roaster with New York roots whose beans bring altitude-grown character into a Georgetown counter.

The space has two floors, with the main counter and ordering area on the ground level and a quieter seating section downstairs. An outdoor patio extends the footprint in warmer months. The downtown seating area, in particular, functions well for the morning working crowd that shows up before 9am with laptops and does not want the noise of the upper-floor traffic while the cafe is filling. On weekends, the patio becomes the primary social space, catching the Wisconsin Avenue foot traffic that moves between the M Street cluster and the upper Georgetown boutiques.

The Salazar brothers drew attention when they opened partly because the combination was unusual and partly because the execution was good. Cafe con Bagel was covered in the Georgetown Metropolitan before it opened and by multiple DC food publications in its first months. The reviews noted the empanadas as the thing worth coming for specifically, distinct from what most Georgetown breakfast options offer.

Hours are Monday through Thursday from 7:30 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon. Friday through Sunday extends to 6pm. The location on Wisconsin Avenue means the Circulator stop is directly accessible, and the M Street garages are a short walk for those arriving by car. For a first visit, the Federal Chorizo is the right order, and a family-recipe empanada on the side covers both things the Salazar brothers built the cafe around. The downstairs seating area functions particularly well during morning hours when the upper-level counter is busy and the patio is still too cool. For a neighborhood that offers mostly large chains and expensive sit-down restaurants, the Salazar brothers built something specific and genuinely useful: a fast, affordable, family-recipe option with real coffee on a block that sees heavy foot traffic from the university and the residential streets above M Street.