SPRING HILL — Ready for the real thing?
On a New York-like cold morning in late November, with one’s breath condensing in the air, there was a place of warmth, with hot coffee, breakfast and lunch sandwiches, warm bagels, butter and several varieties of cream cheese, and smiling owners and staff eager to feed you.
That’s Bagelicious and More on County Line Road in Spring Hill, near Mariner Boulevard, where Linda Henry, her husband David and her store manager Victoria Searze were hard at work preparing to serve customers hungry for their food.
From 6:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. every day, people arrive and leave with one or two sandwiches, bags of a dozen bagels of various types (plain, salt, garlic, etc.), coffee and a friendly word as they set out on their busy day in Hernando or Pasco County.
It was the first time in the store for Michelle Nomikos, who was ordering for her office.
“It’s great,” she said. “I’m actually ordering myself because it smells so good.”
Henry has been in Florida for 55 years and just five months in Spring Hill. She owned a Bagelicious in Wesley Chapel but sold the business because the area was getting too busy, and there was a crime problem in the shopping plaza.
She and her husband live in Dade City now.
“My daughter works at the hospital behind us and she told me that she felt that the area needed something like Bagelicious, like I had done in Wesley Chapel,” she said.
Experience counts
She’s worked in food service for years, serving for 14 years as a manager for a chain of 14 Subway restaurants, as well as a pizza place, another Bagelicious store, and other places.
“I’ve always been in food,” Henry said. “I worked very, very hard for other people, and a lot of times you’re not compensated as well as you should be. You just want to do your own thing.”
She wanted to be an owner, not an employee, and said she has found the right niche in the world of bagels.
“One thing I didn’t know was how to do bagels, and I didn’t want to do dinner time, so breakfast and lunch,” she said.
She went out for a year and worked in bagel shops for free to see how they operated and how they made their bagels.
People are very particular about their bagels.
“My biggest challenge here so far, I would say, the New Yorkers,” she said. “They’re split. Like I said, they remember how it used to be in New York. They don’t understand why it isn’t the same here. And then you have half of New Yorkers come in, ‘Your bagels are delicious.’”
Some say it’s the water that gives bagels and pizza from New York City a unique taste, and there are those who say even the best attempts in places like Florida really cannot compare with a New York bagel or pizza slice, but Henry is willing to try.
“What I have noticed through the years, because I have always been in charge of businesses and so forth, is that people remember when they were a child how their local bagel shops were. How their favorite restaurant was,” Henry said. They want everything to taste like that.
“People are adamant. It has to be this way or no way,” she added. “And then in New York, everything does taste like the water. So you’re not going to get that flavor unless you are shipping down the water.”
Her bagels are boiled for 30 to 60 seconds before being put in the oven, and she uses local honey on them. Henry said that’s the secret to making bagels right.
“It is a New York recipe,” she said.
Business has been good, she said. Some people are regulars and others are just finding the place.
Henry was looking for an area with growth potential, and County Line Road near Mariner Boulevard is turning into a food destination, with a Culver’s nearly finished on the Pasco County side of the road, and other food-based storefronts filling in as well as medical offices.
Rough start
It wasn’t easy at first, though Henry has had help from her Army veteran husband, David, and her manager, Searze.
She could not get bagels to darken for nothing, had equipment problems because they were not calibrated and had to deal with some criticism.
But things are better now, Henry said.
You can get more than just bagels, including breakfast sandwiches. Check out the website at https://bageliciousfresh.com/.
They make their food in-house, Henry said.
“Kind of old school. I still believe in that. I enjoy it and I think my customers appreciate it,” she said. “We’re glad to be here. We’re going to stay and we’ll see what we can do with the community.”
Customers arrive
Customers began to trickle into the store.
Debbie Brown of Spring Hill has been to Bagelicious before and had lunch a couple of times.
“It’s delicious,” she said. “They’re very friendly. The bagels are 100% better than Dunkin’.”
She was there with her grandson. Mason Brock, 12, who was on his way to school.
James Gallagher of Spring Hill is a big fan.
“It’s top-notch. I come here all the time,” he said.
Henry said future plans include joining the Chamber of Commerce, though right now she’s focusing on the business.
As for expansion, she said, that has to wait and she’ll see what the community wants.
“I don’t know,” she said. “We’ll see. I haven’t been here long enough. You have to give it time. You have to build it.”
