In Howard Beach, It's Time to Make the Bagels
Life lessons learned behind the counter at a Queens bagel shop
In the 1980s, Fred the Baker was a popular commercial character. He was a short man with a bushy mustache. As he left his home each morning in a sleep-deprived stupor, he would mumble “Time to make the doughnuts,” and then head to Dunkin’ Donuts to do just that.
During the summer of 1982, Fred’s bleary-eyed mantra played in my mind when my alarm went off at 5:15 each weekday morning. I was 16 years old and my parents had insisted I get a job instead of hanging out at Jones Beach all day with my friends. I desperately wanted to hit the snooze button but, like Fred, I had work to do. Though instead of doughnuts, for me it was “time to make the bagels.”
The bagel shop was five blocks from our two-family house in Howard Beach, so I walked to work. The shop was nestled between a Chinese takeout joint and a Hallmark, and was the only store in the strip mall with lights on as I approached each morning for my eight-hour shift. I felt sorry for myself having to get up so early during summer vacation, but I felt even worse for Frank, the bagel baker, who smiled when I walked in, happy for the company. He had already been there for over an hour preparing the dough. It was boiling hot baking bagels in the summer, but Frank never complained. He just continually wiped the sweat from his hairnet-covered forehead, as he transferred the bagels from the ovens to the bins with a big wooden spatula. We didn’t have much in common beyond our shifts at the shop, but I admired his work ethic. He was always on time and never complained.
The first hour at work was easy, which was fortunate since I was still half asleep. Frank and I would chat as I set up the industrial coffee pots, cleaned the counters and made sure we had enough of each bagel type. It was far less complicated back then: no fancy flavors like French toast, blueberry or whole wheat in our repertoire. Just the standards: plain, poppy, salt, sesame, onion and garlic, and no one seemed to mind the lack of variety. At 7am, I’d turn the sign on the door over from CLOSED to OPEN, and customers would start trickling in.
Soon the pleasant, manageable flow transformed into a flood of hungry customers. The shop owner came in at 8am to help us during the busy hours. There were plenty of regulars, but only a few took the time to make small talk with me. Most stood impatiently, tapping their feet and looking at their watches, wondering what was taking so long. I’d hear people grumble under their breath about the “bad service” and question why they even came here, although most returned like clockwork the following day. When I started the job, the complaining and occasional shouts of “Could you hurry up?” would frazzle me, but soon it just became white noise. My bigger concerns were not slicing off a finger or burning my hand when I poured hot coffee as I rushed to get everyone their orders.
I hated when people had complicated or special orders, especially the request to “scoop out” the bagel’s insides. Weight Watchers had just become in vogue and many people had carbohydrate-phobia. But instead of just forgoing their bagel fix, they would ask me to dig into their breakfast with my bare hands so they could save some negligible calories. In 1982, no food server, including myself, was required to wear sterile gloves, so this was pretty gross. It was also stupid—the same “dieters” would whine that I didn’t fill their bagel with enough cream cheese, although more than a light spreading (what we in the bagel business call a “schmear”) of this high-fat delight seemed to defeat the purpose of removing the doughy deliciousness of the bagel’s center.
Things typically calmed down by noon. People came in for lunch but only in dribs and drabs, so the afternoons were slow and kind of boring. The high point was the bi-weekly delivery of Drake’s Cakes, arriving fresh from the Long Island City headquarters. Frank and I would rip open those cellophane wrappers and indulge in a few Coffee Cakes and Devil Dogs before calling it quits at 2pm.
I grew in so many ways that summer—and not just because I ate my body weight in carbs! Decades later, I never yell at someone serving me food because I know if I rush her she could “accidentally” drop my sesame-seed bagel on the floor and then serve it to me anyway. In fact, I’m pretty sure an angry food server coined the phrase “Eat dirt!” I’m a stickler for saying “Thank you” for good service and putting money in the tip jar, because I know how much that small acknowledgment meant to me as a teenager. I didn’t make more than minimum wage, but I was proud of that paycheck because I earned every penny of it. Although I didn’t appreciate it at the time, my parents did me a favor. My summer tan would have long faded, but the lessons I learned at the bagel shop have stuck with me throughout my life.
