We've been baking high quality, water-boiled, hand-rolled bagels here in New York City for about 50 years now. When I first launched New Yorker Bagels' online shopping (which the so-called experts now call "D2C", for Direct-to-Consumer) over a decade ago, many, many people laughed and told me I was crazy.
"Who's gonna order bagels online?" they told me. "Who's gonna wanna pay $39.50 for a dozen bagels?" (That was our original price btw)
We launched with 12 bagel flavors in preset boxes. No customization options, no mini bagels, no bialys, no flat bagels, no bagels with spreads, no New Yorker Coffee, and no Bagel of the Month club.
Our original products were name after NYC Subway lines...
Now we got all of that, with more in the works. We have hundreds of thousands of happy customers; many ex-New Yorkers who miss their bagels, but also a lot of non-New Yorkers who simply want to enjoy the best.
Now we're being copied left and right: crappy upstart brands trying to do what we do (though they lack our strict Kosher certification, third-party quality audits, variety of flavors and options, and typically charge more).
We have illicit resellers on Amazon, we have fake websites trying to steal our clicks, we have companies with similar names trying to squat on our business. I know, because I listen to unhappy customers calling us each day. They thought they ordered from us–they meant to order from us, but wound up at some third-rate, sorry-ass website selling bad bagels. Well, I'm told that once people imitate your business it signifies you made it, so I guess there's that.
But it's New Yorker Bagels – the world's largest fresh bagel bakery – that capped another milestone today: baking 'n shipping over 3,000 boxes in a single day. That's a lotta bagels, spreading peace, love 'n yumminess all around the US of A.
So I wish you a Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year. I look forward to delivering the finest New York Bagels to your door. Remember though–it's NewYorkerBagels.com. Nowhere else.
-Rob