Shelter Island has nearly everything. Ferries that keep the crowds honest. Roads that end at the water. Farm stands, oysters, and summers people plan their whole year around.
For its entire history, Shelter Island did not have a bagel shop. Not one, not ever.
We were the first to open one here, and five summers later we are still the only one. The Shelter Island Historical Society took note of it, which is an unusual thing to end up in the local record for, and one we are quietly proud of.
The soft opening that wasn't
The plan was to open quietly.
That is what a soft opening is for. You unlock the door, you find out what you underestimated, you learn the rhythm of your own ovens, and you let word travel at its own pace. We figured we would have a slow morning and a lot to fix.
There was a line before we opened.
People were packed in front of the shop, waiting, on the first day, on an island that had gone its whole existence without a bagel shop and had apparently been waiting the entire time. Nothing about that day was soft. We spent it finding out how badly we had underestimated Shelter Island's appetite for a real bagel.
We have been busy ever since.
Open twelve months a year
Shelter Island runs on seasons. Memorial Day fills the ferries and Labor Day empties them. A great deal of what is open in July has the shutters down by November, and for many businesses here that is simply how the math works.
We decided early that it would not be how we worked.
The Eccentric Bagel is open twelve months a year. In February, when the ferry is quiet and the parking is easy and half the island has gone dark, we are open. Same hand-rolled bagels, same early mornings, same everything.
The reason is not complicated. The people who live here in July also live here in January. The year-round residents of this island are the ones who show up on a grey Tuesday in March, and they are the reason the shop works. It would be a strange kind of thanks to serve them for three months and disappear for the other nine.
So we do not. If you live on Shelter Island, there is a real bagel here for you in the dead of winter, the same as there is in August.
What comes out of the oven
Everything is made from scratch and rolled by hand, one at a time. Every bagel that leaves the shop went through somebody's hands first. It is not the efficient way to run a bakery. It is the only way to get a bagel worth eating.
The classics have to be right before anything else earns a place, so we start there. Plain. Everything. Sesame.
Then it gets more interesting. Rosemary & Salt has become one of our best sellers, which we did not see coming — it is a simple thing done right, and people buy it by the dozen. Za'atar, the Middle Eastern blend of thyme, sumac and sesame, on a hand-rolled bagel. Jalapeño Cheddar, with real heat in it. And the Totally Everything Spice, our house blend, which people started asking to buy by the jar so they could put it on things that had nothing to do with bagels.
These are not flavors most bagel shops attempt. That is the point.
Come by
The dozens ship nationwide now, vacuum sealed so they arrive the way they left, which means somebody in Ohio can eat a Shelter Island bagel on a Sunday morning.
But the shop is still a shop, still on West Neck Road, still rolling bagels by hand in small batches. That part is not changing.
If you are on the island, come see us. We will be here in January.