Best bagel shop comes to Roscoe

Grizzly Bagels opens on Stewart Avenue

By Mason Roberts | Manor Ink

Roscoe, NY – There is an enticing new establishment in Roscoe called Grizzly Bagels. This well-decorated bagel shop is operated by Zach Scheitlin, who has grown the endeavor from the ground up.

Four years ago, Scheitlin started coming to Callicoon on the weekends, but he had to bring bagels with him because he found the local options were not satisfactory. Eventually, he started making bagels on his porch in Callicoon. Before long, people started coming by and asking for them. This is what lit his passion for the craft.

“I still have customers from when I sold bagels off my porch. This shop is as much theirs as it is mine; without them there wouldn’t be a shop,” Scheitlin said.

The owner of Grizzly Bagels is self-taught; he never went to baking school. He started out sharing a kitchen with Amy Miller of Early Bird Cookery in Callicoon. Scheitlin credits her with teaching him the professional side of being a cook.

On the day Grizzly opened, he sold 56 bagels. He was so excited. “It was crazy, I was elated.” The business grew bigger and eventually Scheitlin needed more room. “I reached the point where I needed my own space,” he said. So the original Grizzly Bagels in Callicoon grew into the new shop in Roscoe.

Making bagels is hard. Scheitlin showed Manor Ink his bagel making machine. He gets up at 2:45 each morning, Thursday through Sunday. He lets the bagel dough sit for 24 hours before boiling it, explaining the process is necessary to get the correct texture and flavor. “A bagel isn’t a bagel if it isn’t boiled first.”

A patron agreed, describing one as “perfect, crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside.”

Grizzly Bagels’ bagels have been voted the county’s best three years in a row in the River Reporter’s annual poll. The shop’s top selling bagels are the Jalapeno and the Za’atar, a Mediterranean herb blend.

Fun fact: the first bagel making machine was made in Sullivan County by Louis Wichinsky.