This week, a bagel shop called “Feltz Bagels” is rolling into San Francisco to sell $250 bagel sandwiches. There’s just one catch — these bagels aren’t edible. They’re hand-sewn pieces of felt art from British artist Lucy Sparrow, created as a tribute to New York bagel shops and delis. 

In the artist’s first visit to the Bay Area, her colorful, quirky designs will be on display at Fog Design + Art Fair, an annual San Francisco art fair held at Fort Mason Center. 

“I like things that are fun,” Sparrow told me when we met for an interview before the show. She wore a fluffy lavender coat and carried a stuffed banana (his name is Sebastian and she brings him everywhere). “I like things that are very sort of Japanese-influenced, things with faces, things that are very cute, things that are very aesthetically happy and pleasing and possibly a bit too young for my age group.”

“Feltz Bagels” was a hit in New York when it debuted in October, with 40-minute-long lines. Sparrow may not have been aware of the Bay Area’s recent bagel boom until this reporter filled her in, but she was excited to hear about it. “Feltz Bagels” takes its inspiration from New York, but she tries to make the exhibit regionally specific to each city she brings it to. 

In San Francisco, that means more healthy ingredients for sandwiching between the bagel halves, she said. 

“We’ve got things like avocado, egg white omelet and whole wheat bagels to try and cater to the Californian audience,” she said. 

“Feltz Bagels” may be her most delicious exhibit yet, but it still fits in perfectly with the theme found in all her work: highlighting ordinary objects and mundane community spaces by transforming them into escapist, whimsical art. These bagels, for example, have big beady eyes and smiling mouths.

Sparrow, who is from Bath, England, and does not have a Jewish background, carefully researched the show by spending lots of time at traditional New York Jewish delis like Zabar’s, Russ & Daughters and Katz’s Delicatessen. She then spent eight months hand-stitching cuddly felt versions of bagels, latkes, babka, black and white cookies, rugelach, coffee, pickles, bags of chips, hot sauce and much more. 

“Feltz Bagels” features about 50,000 hand-sewn individual items, all of which are for sale. The star of the show, though, is the customizable bagel sandwich, which Sparrow will prepare exactly to your liking out of pre-sewn items for $250. When your order is ready, she’ll call it out just like in a real bagel shop. 

Customers can choose between 15 different types of bagels, from the workhorse everything bagel to the Instagrammable rainbow bagel. There are 44 different fillings to choose from, ranging from the traditional (lox, tomatoes) to the more out-there (Funfetti cream cheese, Nutella). Customized bagel purchasers can pick eight toppings per sandwich.

According to Sparrow’s calculations, that comes out to more than 2 million possible combinations for each custom bagel. The most popular sandwich is the classic everything bagel with cream cheese, lox, red onion, tomatoes and capers, but she’s seen much wilder creations. Take one with pickles, nutella, blueberries, pepperoni and pastrami, for example.

“There’s people that choose it based on what they would get normally in a real-life scenario, and there’s people who want it because of what it visually looks like,” she said. “The most disgusting ones look visually really great.”

The whole experience is so immersive that some people actually get confused and think they’re in a real bagel shop. Even at Fog Fair, a ticketed art event, she guarantees it will happen at least a few times.

“There’s going to be people who are fully going to come up to the counter and ask for food,” she said, laughing. “… It’s a positive response because I’ve made it look so real, but really it’s not that real. They’ve all got faces.” 

But even those drawn to “Feltz Bagels” in a daze of blind hunger are likely to find themselves charmed at where they’ve ended up. While art can often be intimidating, Sparrow strives to make her work feel accessible to everyone. That’s partly why she wanted to make a bagel shop, she said — they’re universal. 

“It’s where people come and commune,” she said. “No matter what background you’re from, you’re still going to be getting a bagel.”

“Feltz Bagels” will be at Fog Design + Art Fair Jan. 18-21 (11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday to Saturday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday), Fort Mason Center, San Francisco. Single day tickets are $30 in advance, $35 at the door.