Meet the man who rolls 3 million bagels a year

February 27, 2023 4:19 PM

Mr. Baka is one of roughly 60 professional bagels rollers working behind the scenes in New York's 250-odd bagel shops. Most shops don't sell enough bagels to require a full-time roller, so t In one shift, Mr. Baka can roll 10,000 bagels—enough to supply all five of his employer's locations the coming day.
posted by SituationNormal (19 comments total)

There's a specialized machine (the bagel equivalent of a pasta machine, I guess?) That you feed the dough into and it shoots out a "stick" in the right length so bakers only need to loop them. I know because my dad is close friends w a primo bagel shop owner and I've had a tour. Or seven.
This bagel shop should get get one.
posted by atomicstone at 4:28 PM on February 27, 2023

How many joints are in a lid? Sorry, first thing I thought of when I heard about professional rollers...
posted by Chuffy at 5:01 PM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

Brooklyn Public Library's film collection's Hot Bagels about making bagels.
posted by mikelieman at 5:37 PM on February 27, 2023 [7 favorites]

Alex Baka must be very rich, 'cos he's rolling in dough all day!

atomicstone, there's another bagel rolling machine that shoots out completed bagels. It used to be a feature of a (not great) chain Great Canadian Bagel. I think the machines were somehow tied to GCB franchisees. I remember a local bagel shop opened about fifteen years ago. They were independent, yet somehow had one of the machines. I got friendly with the owners - a really nice Korean-Canadian couple - who said they kept getting hassled by people from the bagel chain about "giving back their stolen machine". They'd got the machine legitimately, though.

I was really sad when they had to close, not just because bulgogi on a toasted bagel was next level.
posted by scruss at 6:11 PM on February 27, 2023 [9 favorites]

Damn I loved this. People don't realize that when you talk about New York (and really the tri state area in general) having the best bagels, it's not because it's "in the water" or whatever other myths you might hear. It's because New York has the *most* bagels. And when this kid opens his bagel shop, god willing, he knows it needs to be excellent because he knows he's gotta compete with literally millions of other bagels in the city.
posted by windbox at 6:18 PM on February 27, 2023 [8 favorites]

Is "bagels rollers" like "attorneys general"?
posted by jonathanhughes at 7:16 PM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

I hadn't recognized it until you said it, but you've nailed it-- there are enough options that you can dial in on your personal ideal bagel. That, and there's everything around the bagel. I get mine at a shop that does pretty good but not great bagels, but they have eight kinds of cured salmon each tastier than the last and sliced so fine it'd make a sushi chef cry, plus decent knishes, great whitefish salad, and super chopped liver. A bagel is just one part of a complex ecosystem! You can't just dump a koala in California and expect it to thrive!
posted by phooky at 7:27 PM on February 27, 2023 [7 favorites]

MetaFilter: compete with literally millions of other bagels
posted by hototogisu at 7:30 PM on February 27, 2023

You can't just dump a koala in California and expect it to thrive!

Well, they brought them in to eat the invasive eucalyptus. Still waiting on the gorilla shipment.
posted by notoriety public at 7:40 PM on February 27, 2023 [5 favorites]

I know way too much about the bagel formers that you feed in dough and they poop out bagels. Worked in a big warehouse sized kosher bakery that had bagel shops throughout the state and also did the bagels you find in the plastic bins at your grocery store. Probably went through a ton and a half of flour per day. Twas actually a pretty decent job. Lots of stoners and free bagels to feed roommates.
posted by zengargoyle at 9:54 PM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

God this is so cool.
posted by grobstein at 10:30 PM on February 27, 2023

So his bosses rely on one specialist worker doing insane hours every day or their five locations have no product? Sounds like a great plan.

Hope he's raking it in for keeping their business going but something tells me I'm being too optimistic.
posted by each day we work at 11:14 PM on February 27, 2023 [13 favorites]

I was expecting him to have forearms like Popeye.

[One thing I miss in Southern Europe is a really good bagel. I've taken to eating the ones from Bimbo which are like offbrand Lenders. These are not good bagels, but still better than local production. Which is weird because bread in general here is pretty tasty. Then again, bagels aren't exactly bread. I guess that's the secret.]
posted by chavenet at 2:22 AM on February 28, 2023

People don't realize that when you talk about New York (and really the tri state area in general) having the best bagels, it's not because it's "in the water" or whatever other myths you might hear. It's because New York has the *most* bagels.

The math is right there in the article - there are 60 bagel rollers for the 250 bagel shops in town. So you have a relatively low chance of having a unique maker - the rest is mass production. Comparably, every chain Einstein Bros Bagel has an in-store baker.

Maybe the toppings are more unique, because the bagels are not.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:44 AM on February 28, 2023

So his bosses rely on one specialist worker doing insane hours every day or their five locations have no product?

He's not the only bagel-roller available in NYC!

Still, this is one dizzyingly hardworking guy. It sounds like he's managed to put some money away (to buy the Thai restaurant), and I sure hope he gets to open his own bagel place soon.
posted by praemunire at 7:46 AM on February 28, 2023

The math is right there in the article - there are 60 bagel rollers for the 250 bagel shops in town. So you have a relatively low chance of having a unique maker - the rest is mass production. Comparably, every chain Einstein Bros Bagel has an in-store baker.

The bagels are actually boiled and baked in-house in any decent NYC bagel place. Baka is "just" rolling out the dough for transport. And I would imagine that even if Einstein prepares its own dough within each shop (does it? seems unlikely, based on the general chain reliance on pre-prepped ingredients, but what do I know), they probably don't have anywhere near 60 shops within 300 square miles.
posted by praemunire at 7:53 AM on February 28, 2023

But the making of the dough is the most important part in cooking. Actual act of cooking a distant second. I'm sure Einstein chain does the same thing - extrudes dough in a central factory and some guy at each store follows the instructions to cook it.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:32 AM on February 28, 2023

Actual act of cooking a distant second.

Sir and/or ma'am.
posted by praemunire at 9:42 AM on February 28, 2023 [3 favorites]

At my bagel factory it depended on the outlet store. Some were large enough to have freezers and proofers and ovens, they got daily-ish shipments of damn deep-frozen formed dough and did the coating and cooking on-site. The other smaller outlets and grocery stores got the early morning delivery of the first runs of mix, coat, proof, bake, box, ship. We started up at like 3am and I was the mix master for all but like my first month.

I should say, not a NYC bagel per see. Can't do that at high altitude, the boiling point of water is too low (or so I was told). Steam proofing. They were still a lot better than the grocery from a plastic bag sort of bagel. Always quite daily fresh.
posted by zengargoyle at 10:53 PM on February 28, 2023 [2 favorites]