The story behind Bridge Bagels

More than bagels: a ritual we missed

We are Americans and we grew up with the New York bagel culture. For us it was more than food, it was a ritual. When we moved to Cambridge, we went looking for New York bagels to keep that ritual. Cambridge is an international city with a huge variety of great food, but we noticed something was missing: proper hand-rolled, kettle-boiled bagels. So we decided to create them ourselves.

We don’t have prior cooking experience. We are starting from scratch and we are newcomers to the food industry. What drives us is our passion for proper New York bagels and the meaningful ritual they represent for us.

At Bridge Bagels, we’re bringing the authentic New York bagel culture to Cambridge, combining the traditions we love with the quality of British produce, in a place where everyone feels at home.

Where it all began

Bridge Bagels was founded by Ryan Walter and Lauren Robarts, united by a shared love for great bagels and a desire to bring proper New York-style bagels to Cambridge.

Ryan had been thinking about the idea for a year or two. When he and his wife moved to Cambridge from Washington, DC in 2021, they quickly realised they were missing something from home and it wasn’t a place, it was a ritual. Every Saturday morning, they would go for a run and then split two bagels: one with veggie schmear, the other loaded with egg, cheese, veg and spicy mayo. It was their way of resetting for the week ahead.

Cambridge had everything they needed, except that ritual.

During summer a good friend came to visit and they talked about the idea over a coffee. He encouraged Ryan by saying the thing you need someone to say out loud: “there’s something here, go and try it.”

So Ryan decided to test the idea.

From an idea to reality

The first step was simple: find out if it was just us who were missing proper New York bagels in Cambridge.

With a technical background, Ryan decided to build a website himself, creating it in an afternoon and sharing it with a handful of WhatsApp groups.

Within a couple of days, almost 100 people had signed up and most of them were people he had never met.

That was the moment Bridge Bagels became more than a nostalgia project: it started being a business. There was clearly a demand for proper bagels in Cambridge and people were ready for it.

Since then, the waitlist has grown into the hundreds, with almost no marketing spend, showing how strong the interest has been. The incredible response from the Cambridge community has helped shape everything from our menu to our opening plans.

Bridge Bagels community

For us, Bridge Bagels has always been more than bagels.

We want to bring people together through authentic New York bagels, the finest British ingredients and a genuine sense of community, creating neighbourhood spaces where people can connect, share moments and feel at home.

One of the best things so far has been meeting people who wanted to be part of what we are building. In fact, two people who first joined the waitlist have since joined the team.

Lauren is now our Co-founder and General Manager, bringing her operational experience to make sure this feels like a neighbourhood shop from day one. She also knows how to make people feel looked after, thanks to her experience as a tour guide in Rome.

Rossella is our Marketing & Community Manager, bringing nearly a decade of experience in social media, PR and influencer marketing and helping us to share our story, our mission, build our community and bring fellow bagel-lovers along as Bridge Bagels takes shape.

From the beginning, we’ve wanted our community to be part of Bridge Bagels, so seeing two people who shared the excitement join the team feels particularly meaningful.

What’s next for Bridge Bagels

Now that Bridge Bagels is becoming a reality, we are spending our days baking, testing and refining our recipe to create great bagels.

We will start by baking from our home kitchen and seeing where the first step takes us. If those first sales go well, the next step will be opening a proper Bridge Bagels shop, where people can meet, enjoy our New York bagels and feel at home.

The support and enthusiasm we have received from our community are helping us turn that idea into a lasting Cambridge institution, a neighbourhood space that brings people together around authentic New York bagels in a warm and welcoming atmosphere.