DoughCo Bagels

In 2016 I left New York and arrived at Carleton College in Minnesota for college. Through time (and many changing career plans), I noticed a lack of quality bagels in the Midwest and my bagel interest deepened as I moved to Chicago for graduate school. Surely if rural Carleton could support bagels, albeit poor quality, Hyde Park with its large student population, hospital system, and city market would have ample offerings? I was sadly mistaken. The lack of bagels was not only a pain point I observed, but came up in frequent student conversations. DoughCo was not originally born to be a business, but rather to serve my personal desire while living in Chicago to recreate my childhood bagels, externally crunchy, internally soft, and subtle sweetness.

Although my first attempts in my Chicago apartment were a challenge, they taught me the exact bagel qualities I desired. Then when I moved back to New York to start a corporate job in venture capital, the bagels began to resemble their current high quality form. As the pandemic waned, I discovered that by bringing my bagels to my soccer/baseball games, I received honest feedback from self-described “bagel enthusiasts” that accelerated our bagel recipe. From these early interactions, I discovered by milling my own locally grown malt, a key bagel ingredient, the bagels differentiated themselves through their freshness, crust, and taste.

In the Summer of 2022 while still working at my full-time job, I launched DoughCo Bagels with the goal of serving the New York Metropolitan area through farmer’s markets and pop ups. Our bagels are made only hours before each event to ensure their freshness and crispy exterior. To this day, DoughCo’s bagels continue to be handrolled and boiled. Based on popular demand, we now have a preorder system and have expanded into catering work events.

In January of 2023, after months of community support, I went full-time on DoughCo to help it reach its full potential and reach more eager bagel enthusiasts. What started off as just an apartment project, led me to make bagels part-time, and now has become a growing business that includes almost 10 employees for over six farmer’s markets/week.