It’s a blustery spring morning and we’re already late to the airport.
But a BEC on everything is calling after a decadent weekend winery hopping in Charlottesville, and Cupertino’s N.Y. Bagels is technically on the way. A line inching out the door might dissuade someone watching the clock, but my sister and I figure it’s worth the risk. Shouldn’t take too long.
And it doesn’t — she easily makes her flight.
“We push the speed big time,” says owner Nino Palazzotto. “Whatever we do, I want to be hot and fresh and simple.”
Palazzotto, now 34, was barely legal when hired as a “dough guy” at Cupertino’s. He’s grown up with the bagel shop just as the bagel scene has slowly grown around central Richmond. “This was the place to come for the baseline of what a bagel should be,” he says.
Since opening in 2007, Cupertino’s has seen more bagel-focused spots descend upon the city — and they, too, promise natives and transplants alike the crunchy, chewy, better-than-frozen Lender’s good stuff.
But bagels are tough, says Palazzotto, and the diehard folks from big cities who demand authenticity from the humble bagel — schmeared with nostalgia — are even tougher.
We decided to dive into the river city’s busy bagel scene and chat with the folks who keep the ovens on and the dough rolling. Because yes, Virginia, despite what some Redditors may posit, Richmond really is a bagel town.
A passion for precision
In a 2024 episode of their podcast “Deep Dish,” chefs and recipe developers (and couple) Sohla and Ham El-Waylly discuss the origins of the mighty bagel.
As the El-Wayllys tell us, the history of the bagel goes back less than a century in the U.S., though its short coming-to-America tale is riddled with dangerous, basement-dwelling working conditions; union versus non-union turf wars; the mob and, ultimately, the greatest detriment to the dough rollers’ niche skill: the mechanization of bagel making.
But like vinyl records and low-rise jeans, everything old can become new again. Bakers, chefs and other artisans are being drawn to the hand-rolled, bagel-making methods of yore.
“The thing that sets us apart is we’re doing a very high amount of starter, you get a lot of sourness,” says Sunday Bagel pop-up co-founder/owner Jesse Roberts. “The dough stays fairly cold, then with a little bit of extra water plus time, you get this sort of flavor bomb, you’re basically aging the dough.” Though he insists, “I’m not really a bread nerd.”
“He’s speaking humbly,” says wife and business partner Julie Roberts after laughing. In 2022, the couple moved here from Brooklyn, where Jesse worked as a professional chef hopping between fine dining and pizza.
Jesse remembers wondering which kind of restaurant he’d like to open and “bread fell into my lap,” he says.
VCU alum Julie boasts her own restaurant background (she received the James Beard award for best restaurant design in 2018) and says she knew after New York they always wanted to end up in Richmond.
Maybe it’s Julie’s uber chic and professional branding work, or Jesse’s lovingly tended starter— likely, some combination — that has Richmonders lining up, whether that line snakes around Pamplemousse Gallery, Birdhouse Farmers Market, Second Bottle or Penny’s Wine Shop, just to name a few past and current Sunday Bagel pop-up locales.
Even though they’re peripatetic, “I think the main idea is the consistency aspect,” says Jesse, who’s been running Sunday Bagel with Julie for the last two years. “We want to make sure we’re getting into peoples’ routines as much as possible so when the time comes and we do open up something, we are already on peoples’ radars.”
Like Jesse, Julio’s Bagels’ owner Ash Patino finds herself drawn to the intricate minutiae of baking. After opening her first bagel brick-and-mortar this spring — she opened popular Union Hill pizza joint, Pizza Bones, in 2021 — Patino told Style that she sometimes asks herself if she was cursed, “because I feel like pizza and bagels are two things that people have strong opinions about.”
A few months in, Patino says she is grateful for the (constructive) opinions from customers and hopes to continue pushing the rock up the hill to nail that ideal “chewy” factor. “Bagels feel a little trickier [than pizza] because there are less toppings to hide imperfections. It’s important to me to keep making better and more consistent bagels,” she adds.
Julio’s began as a pop-up project about a year before Sunday Bagel hit the scene. Patino would sell bagels on Saturdays at Pizza Bones, giving folks another option in addition to longtime go-tos, Perly’s and Cupertino’s; rabidly popular Nate’s, a cult favorite since 2018; suburban gem Europa Food Market, who imports their bagels from an undisclosed New York bagel maker; and fellow sourdough bagel shop Chewy’s, which owner Ashley Cricchio started out of Hatch Kitchen before opening her bustling Carytown shop in early 2022.
“The Richmond bagel scene is cool,” says Patino. “I’m a hardcore ‘rising tide floats all boats,’ kind of lady. Richmond is beautiful because of the sum of its parts.”
A common bread
Over in the Southside, Baltik’s Bagel owner Yeros Rudzinskas is building his own beautiful slice of boiled, baked-and-served-warm, daily bagel pie.
“I’ve been developing this bagel recipe for years,” says Rudzinskas. “We realized if we [the Baltik’s team] just stayed focused on getting a little bit better every day we will end up being pretty good, pretty quickly.”
In his younger years, Rudzinskas, who boasts a degree from the Culinary Institute of America, saw himself becoming a kind of Thomas Keller. “I didn’t quite get there,” he says, though he worked in Michelin kitchens on both coasts.
Instead, Rudzinskas took his passion for precision to Harvard undergrad, then the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for an MBA, carving out a career in the financial tech space where he was often able to work with food service clients.
“It was a really nice amalgamation of the ability to do mergers and acquisitions in high finance but also being able to be really sympathetic to restaurant clients,” he says.
After two kids and a lifetime’s worth of Zoom calls, Rudzinskas says he was ready to get back to his culinary roots, in a pragmatic way.
“My mom has always said I have a commercial imagination,” he says, laughing. When he and his family moved to Richmond, he saw a hole that a finely tuned bagel recipe could fill, “I’m not saying there weren’t any good bagels in Richmond, there just weren’t enough,” says Rudzinskas.
Then he found a location that was perfect.
“It’s 1,500 square feet with a parking lot and a drive-through, it’s going to be fine,” he says.
Even with numerous naysayers telling him he wouldn’t last a month in that spot, Rudzinskas pushed forward, opening in October 2024 with a free week of bagels. He wasn’t sure that anyone would show up (they did) and their feedback gave him hope — one fourth grader wrote him a note asking that they stay open until 4 p.m. so she could come after school every day.
“I thought, ‘Oh, we’re on to something here,’” says Rudzinskas.
Build it, they will come
When former engineer and New England native Nate Mathews opened his original bagel shop at 21 S. Allen Avenue, Richmonders, especially those with New York and New Jersey roots, couldn’t believe their good fortune.
In a Style food review from October 2018, writer Phaedra Hise praised Nate’s flavor and texture. “None of my travel breakfasts have offered a better bagel than Nate’s here in Richmond,” wrote Hise.
When Mathews and his seasoned team opened their second location in Scott’s Addition this June, longtime customers rejoiced, and new patrons flocked (thank you, TikTok influencers) to the corner spot with more square footage and extended hours.
And the Nate’s empire is only getting started. According to a press release, the Nate’s team, like the long line of skilled dough rollers before them, makes more than 5,000 bagels “all rolled, boiled and baked in-house” each week. They’re also on the verge of opening a new commissary kitchen for expanded baking capabilities.
Cities, as we’ve seen here and around the country, cycle through culinary “booms”—cocktail bars, pizza shops, donut destinations, poke bowl pop-ins, taco towns — you get the idea. Some concepts inevitably flop after the initial burn.
Bagels, though, feel like a pretty safe bet.
“I don’t give out the name of the actual supplier,” says Europa Food Market owner Sergey Fayvusovich of his direct-from-New York bagel source. “But they’ve been in the business for 70 years and statistically, they are the number one bagel maker in all five boroughs.”
Fayvusovich opened his original food market in Midlothian eight years ago, focusing on foods with straightforward, healthy ingredients that you often could not find anywhere else. When he looked around at his suburban settings and their lack of boiled and baked treats, he quickly added bagels to his menu.
You can snag a hot bagel and schmear at the five-year-old Broad Street shop any time, and bags of bagels are available throughout the week (they restock Thursdays) either fresh or frozen. Both come with very specific oven heating instructions.
“We have customers from Roanoke to Virginia Beach to Northern Virginia and Charlottesville,” says Fayvusovich, who immigrated to the U.S. more than three decades ago from what is now Ukraine. “We decided to put us right on the I-95, I-64 interchange to be more central to everybody.”
If you’re on a bagel crawl (highly encouraged) you need only hop back on I-64 to head on over to Cupertino’s, where owner Palazzotto promises a New York experience right here in the River City.
“We aren’t on any delivery apps but we’re still extremely busy,” says Palazzotto. “It sounds crazy now to say ‘come drive, get out, wait in line’ when you have millions of other options. But people still decide to come to us.”
Bagel Breakdown
A cheat sheet for your next bagel crawl.
6801 Forest Hill Ave.
Open Monday-Saturday, 6:30 a.m.—2 p.m.
$ single starting at .99 cents, side of cream cheese starting at $1.50
Go for: Large menu of traditional bagels and bagel sandwiches. Myriad spread options. Dine-in available. Parking.
We like: “The boon of a drive-through (especially when you have 1-2 children in the car) cannot be overstated.”—Mary Scott Hardaway
“The softie [egg-based bagel] has a softer texture along with being a little sweeter; it’s also really yolk yellow so that’s fun.” —Robey Martin
Pro tip: Secure a tub of scallion cream cheese ASAP.
3138 W Cary St.
Open Wednesday-Sunday, 7 a.m.-2 p.m.
$ single bagel with topping starting at $2.50
Go for: Large create-your-own bagel menu, solid coffee offerings and seating available.
We like: “It’s me with the penchant for sourdough so this is probably where I’ll snag the most bagels. And I just know I’m going to get a tightly packed bagel sandwich in the most efficient manner here with what I ordered. The place runs like a machine.” —RM
Pro tip: “You can add all manner of spreads too—cream cheese averse? Try peanut butter or Duke’s, instead.” —RM. And always check out the weekly bagel.
3621 Cox Road
Open Monday-Saturday 6:40 a.m.-1:30 p.m. and Sunday 6:40 a.m.-1 p.m.
$ Plain bagel (no spreads) starts at 1.49
Go for: Breakfast or lunch, dine-in option, traditional menu, lots of bagel and spread options.
We like: “Super chewy, solid crisp exterior. Bagel is far more compact than other Richmond options.” —RM
“No frills in the best way.” —MSH
Pro tip: Step outside of the breakfast sandwich comfort zone: “Has my heart when it comes to the pastrami and coleslaw bagel sandwich.” —RM
5243 W Broad St.
Open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 10 a.m.-7 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m.-5 p.m. and Sunday 10 a.m.-3 p.m.
$ 1.29 single bagel
Go for: Grab and go bagels and quirky European snacks or dine-in with bagel, sandwiches.
We like: Half-a-dozen everything bagels to bring with you for a long weekend getaway.
Pro tip: “There’s nowhere written in the scriptures that bagels are only for breakfast,” says owner Sergey Fayvusovich.
114 W Brookland park Blvd.
Open Tuesday-Friday, 8 a.m.-2 p.m. and Saturday/Sunday 9 a.m.-2 p.m.
$ single $2.50, with cream cheese $4.50
Go for: Smaller menu, coffee options, dine-in (in a window, even!) option available.
We like: “Hurt my jaw, in a good way.”—MSH “A real bite and pull…the open face lox with white onions, capers, green onions, dill and cream cheese is killer.”—RM
Pro tip: BOLO for menu additions. “We keep adding to our menu, we just launched a delicious ‘salty’ cream cheese with a subtle and briny olive tapenade mixed in,” says Patino. Pizza bagels are also on the horizon.
Cary: 21 S Allen Ave, open Wednesday-Friday, 7 a.m.-2 p.m. and Saturday/Sunday 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Scott’s Addition: 1219 Highpoint Ave., open Monday-Friday 7 a.m.-2 p.m. and Saturday/Sunday 8 a.m.-2 p.m.
$ bagel and schmear, $1.50
Go for: Large menu, dine-in available but narrow in both locations. Coffee options.
We like: “The pumpernickel bagel (made with Sub Rosa flour) with blueberry cream cheese. And the design of the new shop. And the pesto pizza bagels [exclusive to new location].” —MSH.
Pro tip: “A spot where vegetarians and vegans can rejoice with awesome additions to their bagel-wiches like carrot lox and cashew cream cheese (cashmear).” —RM
Location & hours vary
$ minimum 2 bagels ($9) with one choice of cream cheese
Go for: Grab and go and make a morning (or afternoon) of picnicking with the bagel. Smaller menu.
We like: “The most everything, everything bagel I’ve ever encountered.”—MSH
“Super light, airy…four dialed in solid options…excellent to eat whilst walking.”—RM
Pro tip: Their menu is small but keep an eye out for seasonal specials, like pickled ramp cream cheese.
