BernBaum’s

By Andrea Baumgardner

ISBN 9781948340557

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Pickles, smoked meat, and insight from the Baum in BernBaum’s, Fargo’s dearly departed Nordic-Jewish lunch counter.


 “[V]ery pretty, very generously seeded bagels at North Dakota's finest—and only—new wave Nordic-Jewish deli … go for the plain on your first visit, in order to admire the perfectly blistered exterior of one very fine bagel.” Food and Wine

“Maybe you’re craving a bagel with house-cured gravlax, lox, pickled fennel and microgreens, with a side of latke. You may assume this wouldn’t be possible in Fargo, where the Jewish population is fewer than 1,000, and more likely closer to 400 … as a Jewish New Yorker currently living in Chicago, I can now say that the best Jewish deli I’ve ever visited was BernBaum’s on Broadway … ”The New York Times

“[M]y grandmothers would have loved BernBaums. One collected midcentury modern furniture; the other whipped up Jewish meals and desserts like nobody’s business. So I had to smile when I walked into Brett Bernath’s Madhaus, which has largely been taken over by the fabulous lunch counter run by his wife, Andrea Baumgardner.” —The Washington Post

“[A] breakfast-and-lunch restaurant that's worth the four-hour drive from the Twin Cities, and then some. At five-year-old BernBaum's, spouses Brett Bernath and Andrea Baumgardner animate the surprising common ground between his Jewish culinary roots and her Icelandic heritage. A passion for lamb, smoked fish and pickled vegetables are just some of the overlaps, and the results are impressive. … [S]o much impresses, whether it's the sublime brisket, the vegetable-laden chicken soup with matzo balls, the creamy scrambled eggs with velvety lox or the cardamom-perfumed blintzes garnished with lingonberries.”—The Minnesota Star Tribune

“BernBaum's is one of those places that seems to come out of nowhere to fill a hole in a culinary landscape.” —InForum


About the Author

Cofounders Brett Bernath and Andrea Baumgardner in front of their collection of vintage toy stoves.

Andrea Baumgardner is the Baum behind BernBaum’s, the beloved bagel shop and restaurant that graced downtown Fargo from 2016 to 2024. Baumgardner’s food roots can be traced to her high school job at Leeby’s where she worked with gruff, knowledgeable butchers and serious farm-style bakers who turned out perfect cake donuts, pies, and lefse. While attending Macalester College, she spent a year in Spain and France, greatly expanding her palate and her pants size. A graduate of San Francisco’s California Culinary Academy, Baumgardner externed at Chez Panisse before cooking on the line at Vivande and Eos in the Bay Area and at Boxer in Los Angeles. She was the opening chef at Cobras & Matadors (LA), before returning to Fargo in 2003 as the opening executive chef of the Hotel Donaldson. She was a partner and chef of Green Market Kitchen before creating BernBaum’s with her husband Brett Bernath in 2016. A Humphrey Fellow in Public Policy at the University of Minnesota, Baumgardner was a semifinalist for Best Chef: Midwest from the James Beard Foundation in 2020 and 2024.