CASPER, Wyo. –– While Carolyn Reilly has only been selling her homemade bagels around Casper for a couple of months, the bagels themselves can be traced back generations.
“I have this book that was from my great-great-grandmother, I guess five generations now,” she said. “She was from Italy, but I think she knew somebody of Jewish heritage because that’s where these bagels come from.”
Carolyn’s trajectory from selling legit NYC-style bagels around town to opening a new storefront moved faster than a New York minute. She will open Olde World Bagels on Saturday, April 4, inside Wind City Treats’s former location at 613 W. Collins Drive, which was left vacant after the bakery moved to a new location on the east side.
Carolyn first started making bagels using her family’s recipe at the urging of her husband, Robert, who grew up in New Jersey and longed for authentic bagels. “I got ahold of her recipe, and tweaked it so that it works with the yeasts and flour we now have,” she said. “I just started experimenting.
“A New York bagel is boiled and then baked, whereas a lot of bagels [around here] are just baked,” she said. “To get that nice crust and chewy insides, you need to boil it first.” The final cooking process is only part of the magic, which is preceded by just the right combination of only a few ingredients and proper kneading. “It has brown sugar when you boil it, so that helps give [the crust] that nice color.”
It was Robert again who nudged Carolyn into the next step, which was to start selling the bagels in markets and taking orders online through social media groups. He took a batch to local business, which then immediately started asking for regular deliveries. Word quickly spread, and regular customers quickly multiplied.
“I thought I’d just post on Facebook, and then my phone blew up. It just spread word of mouth,” she said. “I’m constantly busy.”
One happy customer is a New York City native who recently moved to Casper. “He told me the biggest thing he misses about New York is the bagels,” she said. “He sent me a message and said, ‘I don’t have to miss bagels from New York anymore.’”
For her numerous varieties, Carolyn uses herbs, spices and ingredients fresh from her large garden, which was featured on one of the Master Gardener’s home tours one year. The garden supports numerous chili varieties, from traditional jalapeños to super spicy Carolina Reapers.
“I have a lot of those I use in my bagels because a woman [at the State Office Building] says her son likes really spicy stuff,” she said. When he wasn’t satisfied with the jalapeños, she tried Serrano habaneros. “He’s like, ‘yeah, it’s still not spicy enough,’” she said, so she went for a super punch of Carolina Reaper, ghost peppers and habanero cheese. “He texts and said they were no joke, and sent one of those memes with Patrick from SpongeBob blowing out fire.”
She’s made considerably gentler varieties with apple pie filling, blueberries, and even a PB&J version. “I had somebody ask me for honey wheat, so I’m working on that too,” she said.
The early stages of her new business will simply consist of a storefront to sell the bagels she still preps at home. Soon, the empty store kitchen once used by Wind City will be filled with brand new state-of-the-art equipment she hand selected specifically for making bagels at a commercial scale. She’ll still make them the traditional way, however.
“There are [corporate] places that have a bagel maker machine, but it’s not hand-rolled,” she said. “Mine are, and you get more of the fluffy and chewy texture. As long as I can streamline it a little bit.” A bit further down the road, she expects to add sandwiches and other options to the menu.
Olde World Bagels located at 613 W. Collins Drive opens for the first time at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday, April 4. Carolyn is still working out what her regular hours and operation days will be, she said.
“Everything’s just kind of falling into place, I guess it’s just meant to be,” she said.
