"Keep doing what you love": Montclair man gives up corporate career to open Harvey's Handrolled Bagels

MONTCLAIR, N.J. -- A New Jersey man has a peculiar story about following your dreams.

He gave up his career in the corporate world to pursue his lifelong passion of making bagels. Yes, bagels.

Matt Harvey owns Harvey's Handrolled Bagels on Walnut Street in Montclair and says he's celebrating one of his proudest moments of his life with the opening of the store.

"Right here, we have our most popular sandwich. It's the Jersey City Devil. You have a Taylor ham, egg and cheese, a crispy hash brown and spicy scallion cream cheese," Harvey said.

Showcasing one of his fan favorite sandwiches, Harvey is all the buzz in town. The shop is the result of Harvey taking a major risk and quitting his longtime career as a medical sales professional.

"It was kind of a pandemic story, you know. Just like a lot of other people, once everything shut down, I was at home, I was bored, I was working from home remotely, and I started making bagels," he told CBS2's Elijah Westbrook.

Harvey says it started out as fun. In 2021, he made the hand-rolled bagels at home, selling them to family, friends, events, even donating them to local food banks. The bagel recipes he concocted became a local favorite, and that's when Harvey knew he was onto something.

"My now-business partner with Walnut Street Kitchen, where Harvey's Handrolled exists, she was working at the previous restaurant as the chef. She asked me to come to the bakery side," Harvey said. "Fast forward six months, we decided to purchase the restaurant and the bakery from the previous owner, and in September, we finally opened."

That's when Harvey's Handrolled Bagels was born. It's been in operation for two months now.

Harvey says it was certainly a gamble when he gave up his corporate job of more than 10 years to do this. But it was a risk he says was worth it.

"The support from my family, my wife, Beverly, who is my close friend for 15 years, she really gave me the confidence as well to do it," he said.

It's the "do what you love" mentality posted inside the kitchen that Harvey and his team have.

"There's a lot of tough days starting a small business, working here, a lot of long hours, 12-, 13-, 14-hour days. It's definitely a good constant reminder, you have to keep pushing, keep doing what you love," Harvey said.