Coming Full Circle: Peddling Bagels
It dawned on me the other day that I peddle bagels. Not only do I sell bagels off my porch, I sit at a table on a public street with my bagel offerings. Who would have guessed that I would spend my later years in life peddling bagels?
When I first noticed mobile eateries like Off the Grid (a favorite for El Cerritans prior to the Covid shut-down) and then subsequent pop-ups in the community, I didn’t really think about the food carts of yesteryear. Perhaps I remember a few pretzel vendors at an indoor mall (back in the day when we had vibrant mall life), but never do I recall the cacophony of carts that dot our East Bay landscape.
When Ada of the Golden Hour in Albany offered me a spot in front of her store for a pop-up, I was thrilled. What an opportunity I thiought, to move from my porch to the street. I started staging pop-ups in October of 2022, paused for the rain and resumed again in April of 2023. It’s taken me more than months to recognize who I am - a bagel peddler on the street. I feel like I’ve come home again. I suspect that perhaps having some roots in New York by way of Poland(mother’s side) that an ancestor, generations behind me, baked and sold their bagels on the street.
Bagel Peddler Lower East Side New York- 1900’s Credit: NYC Eats
The peddlers of Poland took advantage of the bagel hole, stringing them together and wearing them. Sometimes peddlers had carts with long sticks so that bagel could be stacked.The carts were a common in the landscape of the Lower East Side of New York at the turn of the 20th century and before.
Prior to my last Pop - Up, I wondered if I could make a cart and wheel it down Key Route to Solano.. Stephanie of Swelter Coffee Roasters can cycle to a pop-up with an attached cart that holds all her equipment. It’s very impressive. I am not that handy. For my pop-ups, I typically gather my bagels on trays and put them in the trunk of my Prius, as I head for Solano.
Bagel Vendor in Krakow, Poland 2014, Credit::Dirk Renckhoff /Alamy Stock Photo
Bagel peddler in Albany, California 2023 (That’s me!)
As Labor Day draws near I feel like I’m in good company with the unionized bagel bakers who first organized in the 1900’s to ensure decent working conditions for the artisan bagel bakers, I know that it’s hard work to bake these bagels, and for me, it is not survival as it was for so many who toiled in dark, sweaty basements to piece together a living. Through unionization, the artisans of the past eventually made a good living until mechanization diluted the power of these workers. Now we can find bagels at the store, online, or at a bagel shop or a pop-up.
Sherry’s Bagels are produced much like the bagels of the past, and sold the same way. I feel like I have come full circle, mimicking my ancestors almost 300 years later.
With limited space I bring 130 bagels to a pop-up and sell out in 2 hours. That’s a bagel a minute- give or take a few seconds. Come early for my next pop-up on Saturday, September 30th. Bagels ready @ 10a.m.
