When did Adam Goldberg realize his pandemic-prompted bagel baking had the potential to become a full-on business? He’d been giving away the boiled breads for about a month in the summer of 2020 “and a few chefs started showing up. And I’m like, don’t you know how to make bagels better than me? And they’re like, no, these are the best I ever had,” recalled Goldberg.
And when did the whole thing turn “very surreal”? Earlier this year he was baking bagels for an event in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles when film producer John Davis “told me he lived 15 minutes away so I went to meet him,” said Goldberg, whose original day job was as a managing director with flood mitigation company AquaFence.
“It was a true Hollywood moment,” said Goldberg, with Davis leading a recent seed funding round for PopupBagels, which has evolved from a subscription service to include three brick-and-mortar pickup locations in Connecticut, rotating pop-up locations in New York City and now talks of franchising.
Davis, a prolific producer recognized for movies including “The Firm,” “Grumpy Old Men,” “Predator” and “Joy,” was an early backer of Wetzel’s Pretzels, Blaze Pizza and Dave’s Hot Chicken. He brought NBA star Lebron James into Blaze and likewise used his connections to add several big names to the investor list for PopupBagels.
“I love doing these with really famous people,” Davis said, “because your social media presentation is like advertising” and notable names mean plenty of attention for young concepts looking to break out.
“Paul Rudd absolutely loved this. He loves the bagels. Michael Phelps, Michael Strahan, JJ and TJ Watt,” continued Davis, listing actors and well-known athletes he helped bring in, along with sports business analyst Darren Rovell of Tastemaker Capital. Other angel investors include actor Patrick Schwarzenegger, Strahan’s business partner Constance Schwartz-Morini and branding agency Red Antler.
Adam Goldberg launched PopupBagels as a pandemic side project in 2020 and is now scaling the business.
The second round of funding raised “a few million dollars. More than $2 million, less than five,” said Goldberg, and followed the $250,000 that came from other investors in late 2021.
Davis, who is still on the board at Blaze Pizza and is actively involved in strategy and expansion for Dave’s Hot Chicken, called Goldberg’s PopupBagels product “extraordinary” as he noted, “Everything I do, the food’s gotta be amazing.”
“It’s got the right amount of crunch on the outside and the perfect chewiness on the inside,” he continued. “It fulfilled my fantasy of what I wanted in a bagel.”
His second investment filter: “Is this franchisable? Can you build and grow in a way that’s viable for franchisees.” Davis believes PopupBagels can.
Creating a scalable business became part of Goldberg’s plan early on as by spring 2021 he’d moved from his home kitchen in Redding, Connecticut, to a commissary kitchen and was selling pre-ordered bagels by the dozen online. That’s still the model, with a dozen bagels and two artisan schmears for $38.
“We’re selling on average 10,000 bagels a week, plus schmears and fish,” he said. The dough is double proofed and can be brought chilled to the various locations where it’s boiled, seeded and baked onsite.
“That’s key as we look to franchise,” said Goldberg. He also sees potential for PopupBagels as a virtual brand that restaurant operators can produce from their existing kitchens.
“I love the idea of a franchisee who has 15 stores only open from noon to midnight, for example, and says they want to bring in bagels to fill that morning time,” he said. “We make it very plug and play.”
“It’s a really easy second line of business,” put in Davis. “And the margins are great.”
PopupBagels are smaller than the typical New York bagel shop version, Goldberg noted, and because all orders come in advance, “we don’t really have food waste.”
“We like to say they’ve got chew in the crust and no lead in the belly,” he said. “A lot of businesses, not just bagels but a lot of food businesses, the food is oversized. There’s no need for it.”
Goldberg said the capital raised will help the company continue to grow its corporate team and prepare for expansion. Davis, for his part, is thinking big.
“I see this as easily a $30 million business in the tristate area and can go national,” he said. “It’s got everything I look for.”