The Spread of the Boston Bagel Community
Photos by Linda Campos
If one were to ask ChatGPT “What are the top foods associated with Boston?” one would likely be unsurprised by the response: “clam chowder, lobster rolls, baked beans, Boston cream pie and Fenway Franks.” A fairly accurate assessment from a disembodied computer bot.
Predictably, bagels don’t make the list. Boston has no historical claim to this beloved bread product. It is our erstwhile nemesis (certainly in all things athletic), New York, that can claim bagels as a pillar of their local food culture. However, over the last 10 years or so, bagel shops have been popping up across greater Boston, proving just how hungry this city is for them.
And to our great fortune, the influx of bagels to Boston does not seem to be slowing. In three different corners of the city new bagels are being peddled (sometimes literally) by bakers producing both great food and a sense of community in equal measure.
BRICK STREET BAGELS
You may have heard of this bagel pop-up that appears in parks and coffee shops across Boston’s South End on weekends—attracting epic lines and significant internet praise. The fluffy, fragrant bagels are worth waiting for, but more than that, a sense of community is brewing in those queues.
They are lining up for Brick Street Bagels—the creation of 29-year-old Jordan Renouf—named for the brick brownstones that dominate Boston’s South End. Born and raised in Vermont, Renouf spent time in New York City and moved to the South End just before the pandemic hit. Tired of spending his days tied to a laptop, he decided to try baking bagels—just for kicks. Using a recipe from his father, he committed himself to perfecting his own iteration in his tiny apartment kitchen.
Once he had a product he was proud of, it felt obvious to Renouf to share them. “I just posted on Instagram: ‘The South End now has bagels, want some?’” He traversed the city on his bicycle making deliveries for a few months, then decided to take the next leap: a formal pop-up.
His first pop-up sold out in 10 minutes. With that first success, Renouf wanted to find a way to make his pop-ups more consistent, and unique. Which is how he ended up taking advantage of public parks.
“Public parks are beautiful spaces,” Renouf explains. “Families can come with their kids. I have a speaker playing jazz music, or the Beatles. I want it to be a pleasant experience.” And it is, with people lining up rain or shine to get their hands on his bagels with their delicate crusts and aromatic, bready interiors, favoring his unique rosemary sea salt and cheddar varieties.
Customers began documenting their waits on Instagram, growing a cult-like following and significantly increasing Brick Street’s demand. Renouf capitalized on this internet popularity, consciously curating his Instagram page to reinforce that the goods are in fact worth the wait (which they are).
However, with great popularity came the need to expand production—which was not exactly feasible in a small South End apartment.
After he simply walked in and asked for help, Heather and Colin Lynch of Bar Mezzana agreed to give Renouf early morning access to their Harrison Avenue restaurant’s kitchen for production. In the early days, Colin would join him just to be there for support. “His small actions made everything in my life change,” Renouf says.
With increased production, the park-based pop-ups became consistent weekend affairs and spread into neighboring South Boston. In the colder months, more local restaurants welcomed Brick Street into their spaces as well. Renouf set up pre-ordering via Instagram, and things continued to steadily grow. “Since the beginning I’ve had big ambitions, but have been taking small steps.”
The hope is that those small steps will eventually lead to a permanent South End storefront for Brick Street Bagels. “Having a shop that’s warm and people can come in and we know their names—I think that would be my way to contribute to this neighborhood in a meaningful way.” From the start, Renouf has been seeking to build the feeling of community he knew growing up in Vermont, which can be all too hard to find in cities today. “The thing that has fed my soul the most in all of this is now I know a lot of people in the community.”
THE GRATEFUL BAGEL
Like any self-respecting New Jersey native, Darren Sylvin has an incredibly high standard for bagels. Sylvin, now firmly transplanted in Massachusetts, was raised on the bagels in Parsippany, New Jersey—the bagels against which he judges all others. He struggled to find bagels that lived up to his expectations in the Bay State. “I am a bagel snob,” he admits. “I used to have bagels shipped to me from my hometown.”
A chef by training, Sylvin spent time working for Starwood Hotels in Puerto Rico before moving to Boston to helm various hotel kitchens in and around the city. In 2019 he took the role as the executive chef for State Street in Boston. Three months later the pandemic shut the world—and State Street’s offices—down.
Being in lockdown made it difficult for Sylvin to regularly procure deliveries of his hometown New Jersey bagels; in a time when he undoubtedly—much like the rest of us—was craving the comforts of home. Around that same time Sylvin and his wife learned they were expecting their first child. He thought, “My son cannot 52 Spring 2024 not know what a great bagel is.” So he set out to make them himself.
Sylvin spent the next two years doing “research and development” to perfect his bagel recipe. He was determined to create something that mimicked his beloved hometown version, and so The Grateful Bagel was born. “I had this image of a bear eating out of a honey pot, but actually it’s a cream cheese bucket,” Sylvin says. His son, who he affectionately refers to as “Braydenbear,” was another inspiration for the name, and “I kept envisioning the Grateful Dead bear,” he explains. With a colorful logo and confidence in his bagels, he took to the internet to put them out into the world.
In January 2023 he began selling his bagels via Instagram, and people could direct-message him to place an order. In May that year he held his first official pop-up in West Roxbury. In his mind, it was a disaster, despite the response being overwhelmingly positive. “The dough wasn’t what I wanted. No one knew but me, but it wasn’t perfect.” He spent the next few months ensuring that his process, and his dough, were perfect.
By September 2023, Sylvin was hosting regular weekend pop-ups inside Weesh Bake Shop in Roslindale, and steadily gaining recognition for his authentically New York (or New Jersey) style bagels.
Sylvin’s bagels are baked to a deep golden color, giving them that quintessential exterior crunch which gives way to a dense, chewy interior. You can see twists in the dough that let you know they have been hand rolled, and biting into one delivers a transportive sensory experience of being enveloped in that doughy scent characteristic of New York (or New Jersey) bagel shops.
The next step? “Bring the New York/New Jersey bagel shop experience to Massachusetts,” says Sylvin. “People are passionate about bagels, but I want to have a sense of community about it. I want to bring the most authentic bagel I can to Massachusetts. I want to put to bed the idea that we don’t have great bagels.”
REBELLE
Providence’s loss has become Cambridge’s gain with the arrival of Rebelle. Owner Milena Pagán has transplanted her successful bagel shop from the Ocean State to Kendall Square, bringing exceptional bagels, inventive pastries and her boundless energy with her.
Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Pagán moved to the mainland to attend MIT and graduated in 2011 with a degree in chemical engineering. She then landed in Providence working for CVS Health as a merchandise analyst.
By 2016 she was growing weary of her corporate job. “I was dissatisfied with my work—and baking was a de-stressing activity for me,” Pagán explains. She decided to try her hand at bagels, having eaten too many subpar iterations while trapped in a cubicle.
After a good amount of trial and error, and continued dissatisfaction at work, she decided to quit her day job. “My boss was, like, ‘What’re you going to do?’ but I was, like, ‘I think I’m gonna go bake bagels.’” And so she did.
With no prior connections to the food world, Pagán began pounding the pavement to make some. She was baking bagels at home and selling them to whomever wanted them, and eventually started doing some popups, finding that the city was immediately taken with her product. “I didn’t know how hungry this community was for bagels.”
After just eight months, Pagán had the chance to open a shop on the east side of Providence. “I didn’t really feel ready, but opportunities come when they come, and you have to seize on them.” And so a rundown former convenience store became Rebelle—a bagel haven that attracted local and national acclaim.
The positive response was not simply a factor of Pagán’s hand-rolled, chewy-on-the-inside, crustyon- the-outside bagels. People loved her commitment to artisan ingredients and her unique cream cheese flavors, like Mexican street corn and smoky harissa. They came for the ever-changing lineup of pastries, like homemade Oreo-flavor pop tarts, and stayed for the community she created, which was done with care and intention. “I want to form that relationship with our customers where there is a little hole in their hearts for us—a little bagel hole.”
It was therefore a difficult decision to close Rebelle’s doors in Providence in October 2023 and make the leap across state lines to reopen in her old stomping ground of Kendall Square.
The former analyst took stock of both cities in making the decision. In her estimation the growth trajectory felt stronger in Cambridge. Luckily, she comes with a knowledge of the neighborhood and a commitment to creating a space where people will feel connected to the shop and to each other.
“My wish is that we can replicate that magic that we had in Providence, where we form a really awesome community.”
The new space is bright and covered in stark blue hues with a colorful hand-painted design motif akin to the one that graced Rebelle’s old walls in Providence. The bagels remain exceptional, the spreads and pastry remain inventive and Pagán remains a centrifugal force around which good food and good energy can thrive.
IG: @brick.street.bagels
thegratefulbagel.com
rebelleartisanbagels.com
This story appeared in the Spring 2024 issue.
