It’s been such a long time

I think I should be rolling (bagels)

Hey Bagels,

It’s been a while since we’ve been in touch. If you’ve been following, we’ve been very busy. Can I tell you how scared I was before opening day? How many would show up? Would the process work? Did I hire too many people? Now I’m anxious about different things. Will it keep up? How do I make enough bagels and cream cheese to keep up with demand? Do I have enough staff??

Good problems to have. The weekend lines continue to be long, but the weekdays lines expand and contract, which allows our customers to get a bagel faster. When we’re jamming, we’re bringing out 180 hot bagels and bialys every 20 minutes. As the weekday demand stretches into the day, we have a new challenge, how to bake just the right amount anticipating demand. It’s a new challenge, but now we can serve bagels almost until close! That’s a win.

We’ve been producing so many more bagels than we ever anticipated. On the weekdays we’re at 2,500 a day, and weekends it’s been up to 3,700 bagels and bialys. That’s 5 to 7 times more than my old business did. And, get this, we’re going through almost a ton of cream cheese every week. That’s a lot of schmear!!!! Our staff grew from 12 to 27 employees in a hurry, and we’re almost fully dialed in.

As I planned, we partnered with Anchorhead Coffee, and in conjunction with our general manager, TJ (so great!), we’re able to launch with an outstanding coffee program right out of the gates.

If you’ve visited, and waited in line, thank you, I hope it’s been worth it. If you haven’t made it down yet, weekdays are the best. I hope to see you all.