Bagel joint eyes national footprint
Celebrity chef Al Brown’s Montreal-style bagel business is taking off in Wellington, prompting further expansion plans.
Brown has plans to open a second Best Ugly Bagels store in the capital, off the back of the success of his inner-city spot.
The MasterChef New Zealand judge, who is the former co-owner of renowned Wellington restaurant Logan Brown, took a longterm lease on a site in Swan Lane in May.
By July, a Best Ugly Bagels store and factory had opened, complete with an 11-tonne, purposebuilt bagel oven.
The shop proved so popular that Brown decided to expand, with a new shop opening at Wellington Airport in late January.
Jeremy Coombes, of Best Ugly Bagels, said the airport shop would expose the brand to travellers from other parts of the country.
Bagels would be baked in Swan Lane and delivered to the airport shop daily, he said.
Brown said the airport shop was part of a national expansion plan. Best Ugly Bagels already has a shop in central Auckland. Another shop is due to open in Newmarket soon.
The idea for the chain came during a visit to Montreal 30 years ago, which left him ‘‘mesmerised’’ for 20 minutes, Brown said.
‘‘I bought a freshly baked bagel that day, just plain, and walked off eating it and thinking to myself that I’d like to bring the idea to New Zealand one day.
‘‘But meantime, someone else brought the New York bagel concept to New Zealand and I thought I’d missed the boat.’’
Instead, Brown went down the fine dining track and in 1996 he and Steve Logan opened the award-winning Logan Brown restaurant on the corner of Cuba and Vivian streets in Wellington.
Brown was involved in that business for 12 years before heading north to Auckland to open Depot Eatery in 2011 – his take on the Kiwi bach.
This was followed by Federal Delicatessen, an old-school, New York-style Jewish deli with a Kiwi twist, then the bagel store.
The bagels are punched, hand rolled, poached in honey water then cooked in a stone oven fuelled by Manuka wood.
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