Call Your Mother Deli at New Hampshire Ave. and M st. is a West End staple.
Sitting pretty in pink at the corner of New Hampshire Ave in the Washington West End neighborhood, Call Your Mother Deli is a staple hub for members of the GW community looking to indulge in some of the best bagels DC has to offer. A fond memory I have from my fall semester as a freshman at GW was making my way to this schmears & fixins heaven promptly after my American Politics and Government class ended at noon. My order remains consistent: The Mountain View on a plain bagel, a glorious combination of avocado, eggs, latke, American cheese, and spiced honey. Little did I know that Call Your Mother would soon have more to do with my American Politics class than just a scheduled stop after class. Jeff Zients, one of the original investors in this beloved bagel shop, officially became President Joe Biden’s new chief of staff on Feb. 1.
Jeff Zients replaces former Chief of Staff Ron Klain as he steps down after two years into Biden’s presidential term. Zients has extensive experience in government work that follows a robust history in the private sector, where he worked as chairman of the Corporate Executive Board and the Advisory Board Company. Zients is quite a proficient businessman, serving as the CEO of the holding company Cranemere and sitting on Facebook’s board of directors for a time.
CNN illustrates Zients’ increasingly deep ties in the private sector, founding his investment firm Portfolio Logic and accumulating shares in the beloved Call Your Mother deli as a prominent investor. Zients’ work in the government is equally, if not more, impressive than his private sector resume. Before joining the Biden administration in 2020 as the White House Covid-19 coordinator, Zients held the position of Chief Performance Officer and Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget in 2009 under then-president Barack Obama. Also serving as assistant to the president for economic policy and the director of the National Economic Council under Obama (CNN), Zients certainly has the business and political chops to serve as the new White House Chief of Staff.
As a student at GW and bagel connoisseur, I would argue that the most remarkable addition to Zients’ resume is his investment and co-ownership in Call Your Mother, an establishment with humble roots as a neighborhood bagel shop in 2018. Now, Call Your Mother has spread throughout the Beltway area, with prominent locations in Georgetown, Capitol Hill, Bethesda, Logan Circle, and more. Married couple and owners Andrew Dana and Daniela Moreira began their bagel enterprise as a dream of Dana’s father to open a bagel shop. Tossing names around with friends, Dana and Moreira landed on the catchy Call Your Mother name when, as Forbes reports, they started “mimicking funny things that their Jewish moms and grandmoms would say.” From there, the jocularly nicknamed ‘Jew-ish’ deli was born with the support of some charitable investors, including Zients himself. Dana originally connected with Zients in 2017 through a friend of his father’s from summer camp. The relationship flourished after their meeting, as Dana referred to Zients in a 2020 interview with Washingtonian as an “advisor and mentor” for the deli.
In his new role as White House Chief of Staff, Zients steps into a tremendous role as the primary advisor for the entire executive branch—indeed, the second most important person in Washington, according to some. Despite the mountainous task awaiting Zients, Biden is confident in his replacement of Klein, describing Zients in an official statement as “someone who understands what it means to lead a team, and who is as focused on getting things done.
Zients is taking the reins from Klein during a tumultuous period on Capitol Hill, with congressional investigations and the controversy surrounding Biden’s possession of classified documents putting White House officials in damage control. Further concerns around Zients’ appointment stem from questions surrounding his preparedness to step into a position that Klein had championed with decades of institutional knowledge about Washington politics, pointing to Zients’ stark contrast as an entrepreneur who garnered his fortune through consultancies in the private sector. Yet, many Democrats defend Zients. In a statement released by Senate Democrats, Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer recalls Zients as “the epitome of what an outstanding Chief of Staff should be. He’s organized, focused, and deliberate, exactly the right person to lead the Biden administration.” Lest we forget Zients’ years of government work under Obama and prior experience in the Biden administration.
As the world of bagels and politics collide, the appointment of angel investor and co-owner Jeff Zients to Chief of Staff certainly fits the #OnlyatGW tag. So, next time you head to the West End shop after class or the Dupont farmers market Sunday morning and grab a bagel from the Call Your Mother stand, remember that you’re biting into a little bit of White House history.
Theodora Lawson is the Opinions Director at the WRGW Blog.
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