Bagels Plus

Thank you for your inquiry in response to my ad. My business is helping set up bagel bakeries. For the past ten years I've been setting up bagel bakeries across the country, from North Carolina to the Central Coast of California, where I live now.

Because I've been in bagels most of my life-I was formally apprenticed to a bagel baker at age 12, and even before that helped out in my father's Brooklyn bagel bakery-I KNOW bagels. When I was a young man bagels were an "ethnic" food, and had to be sought out in Jewish delis and bakeries. Things are very different today. (My father would have wrung his hands at the thought of a Bagel Benedict or a Sun-Dried Tomato Pizza Bagel-but all over the country they're selling as quickly as the can be made.) I've learned that bagels appeal to EVERYBODY. They're easy to make, they're versatile -and more to the point-they're highly profitable.

What I typically do for a client who wants to open a bagel bakery is-EVERYTHING. I begin by helping you figure out costs and a budget, and a timetable. Then I help locate the store. Usually a client suggests two or three possible sites, and I evaluate each. Sometimes I suggest an alternate. (The adage that the three key elements of success are "Location! Location! Location!" still applies.) I help you with space-planning. I make recommendations about all the equipment you'll need. (I can help you purchase everything you need, right down to saltshakers and napkin holders.) And of course I teach you all I know about sourcing and costing ingredients, about devising and pricing the menu-basic and specialty bagels, toppings, salads, coffee and espresso and other drinks. Everything.

I can help prepare a construction and operating budget and then, if you want me to, locate and supervise the work of a local contractor in putting the bakery together. I help hire and train the staff. I teach you and your employees everything I know about making good, chewy, dense, shiny bagels and everything about what to put on them, and whom to sell them profitably. In short I become, for a brief period of time, thoroughly immersed in your business. During that time I teach you everything you need to know: I make all my hard-won knowledge of the business available to you-including my secrets of how to make bagels as good as they get. And, to make you're headed for success, I stick around for a while after opening to help you deal with any problems that may come up. Maybe you need some of my expertise but not all of it. If so, I'm also available to consult on any aspect of starting or running a successful bagel restaraunt. Use my services as much ot as little as you like.

	Help setting goals & making plans
	Help with budgeting
	Help with site selection
	Space design: kitchen & dining room
	Hiring & supervising contractor(s)
	Menu planning & recipe developement
	Help with graphics: signage, menus
	Help with publicity & public relations
	Sourcing & purchasing machinery
	Sourcing & purchasing all ingredients
	Sourcing & costing ingredients
	Pricing menu items
	Help Interviewing & hiring staff
	Training owners & staff
	Troubleshooting
	Handholding & a shoulder to cry on

One of the first questions clients ask me is, "Why shouldn't I just buy a franchise?" To which I reply "Why should you?" First of all, the franchise fees are very high mainly for borrowing someone else's name. Second, you can expect to pay 5 percent of your gross - FOREVER. Third you'll more than likelybe required to make all of your purchases from or through the franchiser, often at a considerable upcharge over what the same purchases cost on the open market. And fourth, I can teach you how to make bagels that put ANY franchisee's product to shame. Most importantly though, if you start your own place YOU CAN OPEN YOUR OWN SATELLITE BAKERIES. Do most of the actual baking at your central location. Deliver prepared ready-to-bake bagels to your own satellite stores, and bake them there. In a sense you franchise YOURSELF.

From the date your lease is signed to the sale of your first fresh hot bagel usually takes ninety days. For my start-to-finish work helping you to plan and open your own your own bagel bakery, I charge either an flat fee or a percentage of costs, your choice. For straight forward consultation on any aspect of the business, I charge an hourly fee. I do not charge for the initial consultation. Incidentally, I do NOT collect fees from machinery manufacturers or other vendors: I work for you and you alone. And please feel free to write or call me for more information. I would be happy to set up a phone consultation, or schedule a time to meet. I'd like to hear about your plans and aspirations, and to discuss how I might be able to make them happen.

	Sales per square foot range from $300-$500 P.A.
	Typical bagel bakery net operating profit is %25 per year
	The entire capital investment in a bagel bakery is typically returned in 2 years
	It suprises some people to learn that the ingredients in a typical bagel cost 6 cents. And that ALL costs (labor, equipment, overhead, ingredients, etc..) work out to approximately 10 cents per bagel. And you can sell that bagel for 45, 50, 60 cents or what the traffic will bear...
	A baking-industry trade magazine says that Americans alone will consume an estimated 2.3 BILLION bagels in 1996-and that market is continuing to grow briskly.
	Because they're non-fat, bagels are particularly popular with people on diets. In fact they're increasingly popular with people of all walks of life, all backgrounds. And certainly bagels are no longer just something to eat for breakfast.
	A prosperous, successful bagel bakery offers salads, sandwiches, toppings, juices, coffee and espresso - not just bagels; has strong by-the-dozen sales; and sells a good quantity of high-margin toppings, such as flavored cream cheeses, for customers to buy and take home.
	With a bagel bakery/restaraunt base, catering can be a natural and highly profitable sideline.
	One characteristic of a well-run bagel bakery is extraordinary CUSTOMER LOYALTY something I can show you how to cultivate. Once they've tried your bagels your customers will seldom go back to frozen bagels, supermarket bakery bagels or the sort of national-chain "bagels" that are full of preservatives and that entirely lack flavor or chewiness. (why on earth should they?)