St. Louis will soon get a new kosher certified bagel shop. Bagels and Bliss is taking over space that previously housed Edible Arrangements at 8141 Delmar Blvd. An opening is planned for late December.
The partner-owners of Bagels and Bliss are Giti Fredman and William Goldmeier. Fredman, whose primary business is the baking workshop Just Bake It! was the subject of a profile in the Jewish Light in 2022. She is known for her expertise baking challah but is no stranger to bagels.
“I’ve been selling bagels from my house since 2018,” said Fredman, who attends Tpheris Israel Chevra Kadisha. “I’m from New Jersey, so I grew up with really good bagels.”
When Fredman and her husband lived in Minnesota, she hosted small challah bakes. Then she decided to branch out and learn to bake bagels. She searched the internet for a recipe, started practicing and had her first successful sale immediately after a fast day, the 17th of Tammuz.
“I put on a WhatsApp chat that I was selling bagels to break the fast — and I sold 300 bagels,” she said. “That’s how I got started with bagels. Then I would do pop-ups and say, ‘I’m selling bagels today!’ ”
Shortly after moving to St. Louis in 2021, Fredman spotted the storefront location at the corner of Delmar and Old Bonhomme Road and knew immediately it would be the ideal spot for a bagel shop. Before the Bagel Factory in Creve Coeur closed in 2022, she met with the owners and learned a few tips about baking large volumes of bagels. Fredman eventually met Goldmeier, who shared her goal of opening a bagel shop.
“I am very handy in the kitchen,” said Goldmeier, who attends U. City Shul. “I was in yeshiva in Israel for three years. For two of those years, I ran a kitchen. I learned a lot of skills there. When I came back home, I worked at Kohn’s Deli. I’ve always thought about opening a cafe and get somebody else to help me with the bagels.”
Bagels and Bliss will begin with basic bagel flavors, including plain, poppy and everything. Eventually, it will add blueberry and cinnamon raisin. Also planned for the menu: coffee, cream cheese, tuna salad, egg salad and whitefish salad. The partners also plan to cure and cold-smoke lox. The immediate goal is to ramp up production and bake 300 to 500 bagels per day, depending on demand.
“We want to make sure the product that we’re giving our customers is the best we can possibly give them,” Goldmeier said. “We both have a good amount of skills to ensure that that the quality is there. The whole community is already buzzing. I’ve had a minimum of 10 people come up to me and ask if they could buy the first bagel. Everyone’s excited.”
The Jewish Light will provide an update when Bagels and Bliss opens. The business plans to serve bagels from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday through Friday.
