Between Popup and Badass, Westport may be the bagel capital of the world.
Adam Goldberg’s Popup won “Best Bagel” awards at the prestigious Brooklyn Bagelfest — 2 years in a row.
Jennifer Balin’s Badass beauties draw drooling crowds at the Westport Farmer’s Market.
But our town is also home to a third bagel maven: Elyse Oleksak.
She and her husband Nick are the founders and brains behind Bantam Bagels. The company — making and selling bite-sized bagels stuffed with cream cheese and other fillings — exploded after they appeared on “Shark Tank.”
Elyse and Nick Oleksak.
Lori Greiner outbid Barbara Corcoran with a $275,000 offer, for 25% equity. The rest is history.
But history, of course, can be messy.
The night the “Shark Tank “episode aired on ABC, Elyse and Nick watched with friends in a West Village bar.
They were elated, when their laptops showed traffic spiking within seconds.
A very pregnant Elyse Oleksak, and Nick, on “Shark Tank.”
Suddenly though, their website crashed. They had done everything they could to test it beforehand — but the company they hired had done its work right.
Fleeing to a nearby 24-hour CVS, the couple worked to salvage the cascading orders — and Bantam Bagels’ reputation.
That’s just one of the stories included in “A Shark Ate My Bagel,” Elyse’s just-published memoir.
She launched it the other day at a Sorelle Gallery party.
Elyse and Nick Oleksak, and 2 of their children, at the Sorelle Gallery book launch. It was past bedtime for their 6-month-old.
It was a hometown event. For the last 7 years Elyse, Nick and their 3 young children have lived in Westport.
That too is part of the Bantam Bagels story.
Once the show aired in January 2015, the New York couple realized they could work from anywhere. Their toddler son suffered from pneumonia and lung problems, so they wanted to get out of the city.
The idea of grass and water was appealing. They knew no one here — Elyse, who grew up outside of Boston, had never heard of Westport — but from the start, they loved the town.
In 2018, they sold Bantam Bagels to the T. Marzetti Company for $34 million. They stayed on with the company they founded, and loved, in management and creative capacities.
When COVID hit, sales skyrocketed. People loved Bantam offerings like an everything bagel filled with veggie cream, a cinnamon and nutmeg-spiced egg bagel filled with maple syrup and butter-flavored cream cheese, and product extensions including stuffed pancake bites and pizzas.
Bantam Bagels: a small sampling.
But suddenly the supply chain locked up. Big customers like Starbucks and grocery store chains streamlined their selections.
It was the beginning of the end for Bantam Bagels. In May of 2022 Lancaster Colony — the parent company of T. Marzetti — closed the brand.
That’s when Elyse decided to write her book.
“Now that I have the forest-over-the-trees view, I wanted to tell the story,” she says.
“The undulations of successes and failures — that’s life.”
Elyse Oleksak reads from her book, at the Sorelle Gallery launch.
Writing the book was therapeutic. She relived the lightning-fast years in which she and Nick started, and grew, their company.
They had no down time, no weekends off. Meanwhile, Nick was still working at his day job, in investment banking. (Elyse had a Wall Street background too.)
It was a whirlwind few years, which Elyse wanted to convey to readers. To do it right, she needed readers to connect viscerally with what it was like to build a company from scratch.
She read other memoirs — by businesspeople, actors, chefs, Prince Harry — to learn how to resonate with readers.
“This is not just a how-to business book,” Elyse says. “I wanted raw emotion, to bring people along on my journey.”
As an entrepreneur, self-publishing made sense. She was eager to market her book, and herself. Once again, she is in her go-go, problem-solving, put-it-out-there element.
Of course, marketing a book is different from marketing a bagel.
“I knew our bagels tasted amazing,” Elyse says. “I’m less sure of this product. Writing a book is incredibly personal. I’m more nervous about this.”
This time too, she notes, it’s not money that’s on the line. It’s her sense of self.
As she markets “A Shark Ate My Bagel,” Nick is busy too.
Before Columbia University (where he played baseball and met Elyse, a varsity lacrosse player), he grew up on a farm, and worked in a factory.
He always loved working with his hands. So after leaving Wall Street and Bantam Bagels, he started his own real estate company. He does much of the construction himself.
So what does the bagel company founder/bagel book author think about the Westport bagel scene?
“Nick and I were not bagel snobs. We just loved bagels. We ate all kinds,” she says.
“I love Popup’s creativity. But I love classic Village Bagels too. And Gold’s!
“Actually, I’ll eat anyone’s bagels.”
But — this being Westport — there’s a 1-degree-of-separation twist to every story.
Here’s hers: Adam Goldberg — the founder of Popup Bagels — is a prior owner of the home where Bantam Bagels’ Elyse and Nick Oleksak live now.
“There must be something in the water,” she says.
(From soup to nuts — and of course, bagels — “06880” covers Westport’s business and culinary scenes. If you enjoy this hyper-local blog, please click here to support our work. Thank you!)
