In nearly 50 years, Ess-a-Bagel has become one of New York’s biggest bagel giants — and its brand is only getting bigger.
Ess-a-Bagel announced on Feb. 11 the completion of a 7,500-sq. ft. production facility in Harlem. The company’s immense growth over the past few years led to the decision to establish a dedicated manufacturing site for both its local and national bagel needs.
Started in 1976 by Florence and Gene Wilpon out of a Gramercy shop, Ess-a-Bagel has grown from its first shop to now multiple across New York City and at the Newark Liberty Airport while retaining its family-run roots. Offering more than a dozen different types of bagels, Ess-a-Bagel has cemented itself as an iconic representation of the New York bagel taste and flavor: hard on the outside with a soft and chewy interior.
While Ess-a-Bagel has had a relationship with the food-delivery service Gold Belly since 2016, the demand the company faced during the pandemic showed that there were more opportunities to be met. They had customers who were purchasing wholesale in bulk from as far as Montana – and other interested wholesale clients.
“That was our first testing in that kind of volume,” explained Melanie Frost, CEO of Ess-a-Bagel, remembering one client who picked up 30,000 bagels and 7,000 pounds of cream cheese – all made out of the storefront. “We were just expanding and busting out of the shop.”
Following the post-pandemic opening of their locations at Time Out Market in Brooklyn and near Madison Square Garden on East 32nd Street, Ess-a-Bagel set out to find a space to start their factory. After looking across the city, they decided upon the space 1751 Park Ave. in Harlem – the former site of Magnolia Bakery’s factory – because “you’re not going to find space like this in Midtown Manhattan, or it’s going to be astronomical [in price],” explained Frost.
Though its completion was announced in February, the facility opened and began operation in fall 2024. With this new factory up and running, Ess-a-Bagel is expanding even further; a new store opened on March 12 at 115 Broadway in the Financial District, and a catering facility nearby will soon follow.
“I say we’re doing right now between 30,000 to 80,000 bagels a month,” explained Frost in early March – an estimate already healthily above the low-end of the 2,000 to 20,000 bagels a week noted in their press release announcing the new factory’s opening.
While the facility currently employs only eight people, it could potentially expand to 41 full-time roles, including management, bakers, and production line workers, as it scales up.
“We look to grow people all the time,” said Frost – who refers to Ess-a-Bagel’s staff as her family. “That’s a big part of what we do.”
The majority of the bagels made at the factory are parbaked, meaning that 75% of the bagel is cooked while 25% is frozen. With easy instructions sent out with the bagels, Ess-a-Bagel has created a business model of bagel delivery in which, “you can’t mess with the recipe”, as Frost puts it.
Various businesses across the country, including in Virginia and Missouri, now sell these Ess-a-Bagel brand bagels at their own establishments.
“Eventually, maybe they will become an Ess-a-Bagel bagel,” explained Frost. “That is the goal — to open more corporate stores and possibly franchise eventually and at the same time, distribute throughout the country.”
