In St. Louis’ food scene, the current star of the show is the humble bagel. New shops, and long lines, led Sauce Magazine’s Meera Nagarajan to declare it a “bagel boom.”
And the epicenter of that explosion and baked and boiled goodness? In her cover story for Sauce’s June issue, Nagarajan traces it to Bagel Union in Webster Groves. On Monday’s St. Louis on the Air, Nagarajan and Bagel Union co-owner Ted Wilson discussed St. Louis' burgeoning bagel scene, which suffered a loss last year with the closure of the Bagel Factory.
“People love a bagel,” Nagarajan said. “I think that the places that we talked about in this story are really trying to make sure that they're elevating it to the next level.”
But to get to that level, you have to put in the hours. Jackie Polcyn, Bagel Union’s head baker and production manager, typically arrives for work between 5 and 5:30 in the morning.
“It takes about an hour for our oven and boil kettle to get up to tempo, and then we really roll into our bake, which is pretty intense after that,” she said. “It's anywhere from four to six hours of baking straight. …We clean it up and we go straight into production, which is mixing and shaping all the bagels for the following day’s bake.”
The shop, located in Webster Grove at 8705 Big Bend Blvd., produces around 2,000 bagels every day.
For the full conversation with Meera Nagarajan, Ted Wilson and Jackie Polcyn, and to learn more about how Bagel Union whips up thousands of bagels daily, listen to the full St. Louis on the Air conversation on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or by clicking the play button below.
“St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Miya Norfleet, Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski, Elaine Cha and Alex Heuer. Ulaa Kuziez is our production assistant. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr. Send questions and comments about this story to talk@stlpr.org.
