August 6, 2023 – Meet Brooklyn Bagels Co., bringing quality bagels to Split and looking to franchise all over Croatia.
Having been an immigrant/expat most of my adult life, I have come to realise a few things about the expat life. One of the strongest is cravings from home and the (non-) availability of favourite things back home. News of the opening of an Indian restaurant, for example, has sent ripples of excitement through expat communities in half a dozen countries where I have lived.
After 21 years in Croatia, the availability of foreign products, as well as the choice of international eateries has increased exponentially, but there is one product I have heard grumblings about for its lack of availability over the years here in Zagreb…
Bagels.
My best friend here for many years before he returned to the States was a New York Jewish guy who was passionate about his bagels. Every time there was the rumour of a new bagel shop opening in the capital, he was the first to check it out, and the levels of disappointment on his face only got bigger each time.
Meanwhile in Split…
It seems that a quiet bagel revolution, which has its origins in New York City itself, has been taking place quietly in Split over the last five years, in the form of the Brooklyn Bagels Co,, which has been putting out quality bagels for five years now, expanding to three locations in the Dalmatian capital…
… and is now looking for franchisees to take the Brooklyn Bagel Co. story to other parts of Croatia. So if you are a bagel lover and looking for a new opportunity, read on, as we catch up with Brooklyn Bagel Co. founder, J. Kent Pepper.
Bagels in Croatia. I have heard so many cravings from expats over the years, and several bagel stores have opened and brought disappointment. Is the Brooklyn Bagel Co. in Split the real deal? How so?
Breadmaking was my hobby when I lived in Manhattan (not Brooklyn, alas). When I told this to expats I met after my wife and I first moved to Croatia, several of them immediately blurted out, “Do you make bagels?” Being a New Yorker, I know how a real bagel should taste, and I got to work learning how to make them.
I think I’ve tried every “bagel” offered in Croatia, and they are all nothing more than bread with a hole in the center. None of them were as dense and malty as a real bagel, nor had any of them been boiled in water. It took a lot of searching to find some of the ingredients, but it never occurred to me, since Croatians don’t know what a real bagel is, that I could easily cut corners—pun intended.
For those who are not familiar, tell us exactly what a bagel is and how you can tell a real bagel from an imitation?
Jewish immigrants brought their traditional round bread with a hole in the center to New York from Poland in the 1800s, and it has since become a breakfast staple for most New Yorkers. What makes a bagel different from most other types of bread is that they’re boiled before baking. This gives them the distinctive chewy crust that makes bagels so special. If your bagel has a crisp or flaky crust, it isn’t the real thing. Bagels are also supposed to be dense with small air bubbles.
You have been here for 5 years now. Tell us a bit about how you saw and realised the opportunity. How familiar were locals with your product and what was the initial reception?
I’ve always had an entrepreneurial spirit, and one of the things that attracted me to Croatia is how much opportunity there is here. I truly believe Croatia is on track for a great future. Walk down the streets of Paris, Rome, Hong Kong, and you will see five great business ideas that can almost effortlessly adapted for Croatia. I’m from New York and ate a bagel almost every morning for breakfast, so bringing them here was the obvious idea.
Some Croatians know about bagels because they’ve heard the word on Seinfeld or Friends, but very few know what one looks like—and even fewer know what a bagel tastes like. My favorite day was working in our shop when we first opened. An older woman stepped up to the counter and said (in Croatian), “I pass this shop every day. I don’t know what this is, but I always see people here so I’m going to try it.” I don’t remember what she ordered, but the next day, she came back for another.
Tell us about the range of bagels on offer. Which is your personal favourite?
I wouldn’t have decided to make bagels if I didn’t really like them myself. My absolute favorite is the classic New York bacon-egg-and-cheese sandwich on a bagel—and judging by our sales, I’m not alone. We make eight types of bagel: plain, sesame seed, poppy seed, onion, garlic, everything (our best seller), honey-wheat, and cinnamon-raisin. Of course, no bagel would be complete without schmear—what New Yorkers call the cream cheese spread that’s typically put on a bagel. We offer plain cream cheese and make veggie, scallion, salmon, and (specially for Dalmatia) fig and honey. For sandwiches, customers can get bacon-egg-and-cheese, lox (salmon) and cream cheese, ham and cheese, turkey, Italian, mortadella, mushroom, and veggie.
You are expanding, not only in Split, but further afield. Tell us more – which other locations will people be able to get their authentic bagels, and under what planned timeframe?
We’ve opened three shops in Split so far, and with the last one, we really have the process down. Our goal is to have Brooklyn Bagel Co. sandwich shops all over, and we think the best way to do that is to provide other entrepreneurs with everything they need to open their own franchise in their city.
If you are expanding to multiple locations, how will you manage to keep the quality and consistency?
My bakers and I spent the winter in the bakery perfecting a process for producing par-baked bagels. These are bagels that are boiled and then partially baked before being flash frozen. The baking can then be finished at each shop. This way, no matter how far away a shop is from our bakery, we can provide our customers with a fresh-from-the-oven bagel.
The ingredients we use are ideally suited to be prepared in a consistent manner. We have guidelines for how thick every slice of meat should be cut and how many capers should be used. From the beginning, it was always front of my mind to make sure that everything we do can be easily replicated so customers know exactly what to expect when they order a Brooklyn Bagel Co. sandwich, and they know they’ll love it every time.
Running a business in Croatia, especially with a relatively unknown product on the local market, much have its challenges. How has it been for you?
The thing about bagels that I most frequently need to explain to Croatians is, “This is not a doughnut.” (“Nije krafna,” was one of my first Croatian phrases.) When I first started out and were only offering our bagels wholesale to restaurants and hotels, a friend offered us the opportunity to open a popup shop in the front window of his restaurant. We were only selling bagels with schmear, and in the first week, several locals asked how it’s served. It had never occurred to me that someone who hadn’t grown up with bagels would wonder whether the cream cheese was put in the hole. Or were you supposed to dip it? Was it spread on top? I had to put a photo of a finished bagel with schmear on the counter to show customers.
The gourmet scene in Split is still evolving. How would you summarise it, and how much has it changed since you arrived?
So many ingredients that were once a rare find in the market are now regularly available. I can count on items being in stock that, not too long ago, I had to hoard when I came across them. I think this is part and parcel of why Split is seeing more chefs in restaurant kitchens, and not just cooks; they can feel comfortable putting more variety on their menus without the fear that they’ll have to remove things a month later.
Even more exciting are the number of authentic ethnic restaurants that are opening in Split. The number of diverse dining options for the city’s foodies is expanding rapidly, and it’s made eating out so much more fun.
You can learn more about the Brooklyn Bagel Co. on the official website. If you are interested in more information about the franchise opportunity, please contact [email protected] Subject Bagel.
This article was produced in paid partnership with Brooklyn Bagel Co.
