New York bagel lovers rejoice: Boichik Bagels is making ready to open a retailer in Harmony on the finish of April.
“I’ve had people asking for a Walnut Creek spot since I opened,” mentioned founder Emily Winston. “There are a lot of people who want one closer to them and don’t want to have to brave the tunnel traffic.”
It’ll be the eleventh Boichik Bagels outpost, however the first east of Berkeley.
A New Jersey native, Winston opened the unique Berkeley retailer in 2019. Inside months there have been traces across the block.
Winston mentioned she started experimenting with bagel-making after shifting to the Bay Space in 2010 and being “disappointed” by the bagel scene. She hoped to recreate her favourite bagels from childhood, the bagels from the since-closed H&H Bagels in Manhattan.
“It was my obsessive new hobby,” she mentioned. “I’d keep trying it every few weeks, taste them, bring them to my friends, we’d talk about it and I kept playing with it. Five years later, I had an awesome bagel.”
Winston mentioned she by no means thought her home made bagels would flip right into a bagel empire till she began promoting some out of her home and noticed traces down the road.
A former mechanical engineer, Winston mentioned she made these bagels for all of the East Coast transplants within the Bay Space.
The every little thing bagel is “by far the most popular,” she mentioned.
“There are a lot of ex East Coasters like me who want a serious New York style bagel, not a fluffy, round bagel or a sourdough bagel,” Winston mentioned. “It’s a taste of nostalgia. If you grew up with that flavor, that’s what you want.”
Particulars: Opening on the finish of April at 2980 Deal with Blvd. in Harmony; boichikbagels.com.
A basket of bagels within the retail kitchen space of the brand new Boichik Bagels manufacturing facility on Thursday, March 23, 2023, in Berkley, Calif. The 18,000 sq. foot plant will produce dough, bagels and pastries. (Aric Crabb/Bay Space Information Group)
