She craved a bagel. Now, 2,160 are on way from Montreal
Neighbours join order from family-run bakery, raise $800 for charity
Rachel Lissner’s daily bagel with cream cheese has become a reliable part of her routine amidst the uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic, a comfort amidst the chaos. So when the Washington-born Torontonian, who moved to the city more than a decade ago, officially filed her Canadian citizenship papers on Monday, Lissner, 31, decided to celebrate by ordering the rosemary rock salt bagel from St-Viateur Bagel, in Montreal.
Her pre-pandemic plans included passing through Montreal and going to St-Viateur — open since 1957 and the city’s longest running bagel shop — was part of those abandoned plans.
“It’s just really comforting and I thought I would indulge, and go all out and get my favourite bagel,” she said.
That is, until she hit the $23 shipping fee on the smallest order from St-Viateur: two dozen bagels. Instead of abandoning her plans, Lissner opened up the order to her neighbours by posting on neighbourhood Facebook groups for Seaton Village, Dufferin Grove and Roxton Road, in west Toronto.
A few people were interested in chipping in on the order. Lissner called the bakery and manager Nicolo Piazza assured her it could feed a whole neighbourhood. But then, within 36 hours, demand swelled and
Lissner had accepted more than $2,000 in e-transfers from virtual strangers.
On Wednesday, she is expecting 20 boxes carrying 180 dozen bagels to arrive at her home. That’s 2,160 bagels, including sesame seed (the most popular choice), everything, rosemary rock salt, poppyseed and cinnamon raisin, plus a few orders of bagel spice. It’s the biggest order St-Viateur has ever sent to a single person outside of Montreal.
It was “all for Rachel,” said Piazza, who said the customer went from ordering for herself and some friends, to take advantage of regular shipping prices, to “making this a community thing.”
“She came back with this whopping number and told me the story of how she did it. I found that so cool and I helped her out as much as I could,” said Piazza, who calls Lissner a “real hero” for thinking of others in this time.
St-Viateur, a family-run business, has been fortunate to be able to sell and ship bagels during the pandemic, Piazza said. But other parts of the business have been affected: one location with a full restaurant and two other locations with food services were closed, although takeout services reopened on Saturday.
“When the pandemic first hit, you had owners baking and rolling bagels. This is not glamour work,” Piazza said.
Baking an order the size of Lissner’s will take 3 dough batches and five hours to make overnight on Monday. The final box will be filled just in time for
“After feeling like my world is so small … it was a really nice way to connect with people.”
RACHEL LISSNER ON HER BAGEL ADVENTURE
a Purolator pickup on Tuesday morning.
Along with the order, Piazza contributed a $100 donation for Sistering, the Toronto-based multi-service agency for at-risk women who are homeless or precariously housed. Lissner added the charitable element to the neighbourhood bagel order once it started to gain steam, and has raised about $800.
“I could pick whatever group I wanted but I figured that Sistering’s in the neighbourhood and it’s an organization that people in this order would especially feel connected to,” she said. “I think they’re amazing.”
Lissner is also feeling connected to her neighbours, in part through the bagel order. She didn’t know many of her neighbours before the pandemic, but her street was quick to organize, putting on nightly concerts to support front-line workers fighting to curb COVID-19.
Lissner’s role in the band is to “play the cheese grater while hula-hooping, like that’s a normal thing to say.”
She is impressed by how willing strangers were to give her money for the bagel order and to Sistering.
“After feeling like my world is so small … it was a really nice way to connect with people,” she said. “The fact that it was pretty effortless and unexpected and it brought a lot of people joy, I know that will resonate in other ways.”
Lissner considers herself quite fortunate during the pandemic. She is able to work from home and put more than $2,000 in bagel fees on her credit card without worry. But she thinks of others, like her neighbour who works at Mount Sinai Hospital, and hopes the bagels bring her the same kind of comfort.
“I know a lot of people, for them getting a dozen bagels from Montreal is a real highlight,” she said.
“I just think it’s kind of fun and kind of silly. It’s a total indulgence but hey, something fun and good. I’m glad something came out of it.”