WHEN IT BREAKS, FIX IT AND KEEP ON GOING
The scariest moment in Bantam history came during the most important night of our entrepreneurial careers: our debut as entrepreneurs on ABC’s Shark Tank. We spent months preparing for what...
Our Story
THE BANTAM STORY
Changing the way you breakfast
Our Company, Bantam Bagels, has been operating at the velocity of a rocket launcher.
We began with insanely delicious homemade bagels from our Brooklyn apartment. Setting out on a mission to change the way people eat an iconic food, in less than 4 years we took our homemade bagels and opened a shop on Bleecker Street, caused a national disruption in the bagel market, and grew our distribution from that tiny Bleecker Street shop to two product lines in over 16,000 stores nationwide (not to mention, having two babies along the way!).
By far the most entrepreneurial lesson we’ve learned is that it’s not all about selling, but actually about connecting. Food is so personal and we feel lucky to be able to connect with our customers every day in the most personal of ways through the products we take so much pride in making. We wanted to carve out a special section on our website and dedicate it to the dreamer, hustler, “work-harder-than-everyone-elser” - the entrepreneur. We want to share excerpts from our own journey with the hopes that we can inspire, teach, or simply entertain the people who are eating our products and making our dreams come true. Hope you enjoy!
QUALITY FIRST, SLEEP LATER
I had been in our new co-packer’s bakery now for 10 straight days from sunrise to sunset, and I knew every single person’s name, their role on our line, and...
A LEARNING MOMENT
One of our first large production runs was for an elite Caribbean cruise liner, an order that came in by the truckload for bagels that they needed in Miami only...
THE BANTAM HUSTLE
Behind our brand is a churn of hard work, so passionate and avid, that the idea of hard work has become the heart and soul of our company, driving us...
MAKING IT WORK!
Anyone who is a working parent knows that the idea of “balance” is more of an aspirational notion than an achievable goal. As new parents, we’ve come to terms with...
YOU CAN’T SELL SOMETHING YOU DON’T TRULY BELIEVE IN
Our company and products are such extensions of ourselves that we consider them additional members of our family. It’s a pure, genuine belief in our product that drives us to...
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS TOO MUCH PREPARATION
Being an entrepreneur is an interesting career path because it isn’t just one path—it’s essentially 100 jobs merged into one. People ask us all the time how we manage all...
MAKING CONNECTIONS
The summer before we went national with the largest coffee chain in America was one of the most thrilling times for our company. What separated this from any other business...
KNOWING OUR BUSINESS INSIDE & OUT
With a product that was moving faster than our business infrastructure could grow, there were many times in the early days when we did things the hard way—the much, much...
WE ALWAYS SURROUND OURSELVES WITH FELLOW HUSTLERS
We learned very quickly that being entrepreneurs meant adapting to a lifestyle of constantly swirling panic, elation and heart pounding adrenaline. When the entire company is on your shoulders, every...
YOU CAN’T SELL SOMETHING YOU DON’T TRULY BELIEVE IN
Our company and products are such extensions of ourselves that we consider them additional members of our family. It’s a pure, genuine belief in our product that drives us to...
WE NEVER STOP LEARNING
When we received the first major interest in our bagels back in 2015, we were so accustomed to saying YES—the strategy that had brought us from zero to the national...
SAY YES AND THEN FIGURE IT OUT!
When Bantam Bagels was only 4-months-old we got a phone call from the largest home shopping network in the world. We listened ecstatically to the buyer, beaming from ear to...
The B Squad – Our Team
Hannah, Operations Meet Hannah, Bantam’s Director of Supply, Planning & Operations. She is the glue that holds everything together and the brains behind the operation. Hannah embodies the Bantam Hustle....