Bay Area bagel savant Emily Winston, the founder of Boichik Bagels and subject of many East Coast versus West Coast bagel debates, has signed a lease for an 18,000-square-foot North Berkeley warehouse and retail space that will allow her to bake more bagels and get back into pastry-making. It will also have a large patio with tons of seating.
“I really love the location,” Winston says of the industrial neighborhood on Sixth Street, near Covenant Winery. “I love the neighbors. I love that it’s industrial but still delightful. It has character.”
As first reported by J. Weekly, Boichik’s original shop in the Elmwood District “is bursting at the seams” with orders for Winston’s boiled New York-style bagels and bagel sandwiches. The new warehouse will house all dough production and cream cheese whipping, and allow Boichik Bagels to increase its wholesale business with fine grocers, like Diablo Foods and Berkeley Bowl.
It also means the epic black and white cookies, rugelach and triple chocolate loaf cake that Winston offered when she first opened her doors in November of 2019 are coming back.
“There was just such a demand for bagels at the time that we couldn’t do the pastries, but I want to bring them back,” she says.
Winston says she is currently in the design phase, with building permits and construction, hopefully, to follow. She estimates that the new warehouse and retail space will be open a year from now. She also revealed her plans to open more Boichik Bagel locations in the Bay Area.
At the top of her list: The Peninsula.
“People tell us they drive an hour from Palo Alto and San Jose for bagels, so the Peninsula is definitely a priority,” she says.
The hope is for a handful of locations in the Bay Area. Winston says she does not want to become “a cheesy chain.”
“I’m not envisioning that we’ll be sprouting up every two miles,” she says. “But maybe you can access our bagels within a 20- or 30-minute drive.”
