Our Story
Rosenfeld’s Bagels was conceived in 1973, when founder Marc Rosenfeld tried a local Boston bagel offered by one of his Suffolk University School of Law friends as a snack during a late night study session. “I can do better”, he told his friends.
While it seemed doubtful that this Suffolk Law student knew anything about baking, the fact was, Marc Rosenfeld was the perfect person to start the Boston area’s finest bagel shop. You see, Marc had worked for one of the top bagel shops in Westwood, New Jersey while earning his undergraduate degree at Rutgers. His recipes and techniques were exquisite, and it wasn’t long before the idea of offering Boston the best bagel became more than just a fun idea, it soon became a business.
With care, quality and a little bit of malt syrup to add a special kind of sweetness!
In 1973, Marc Rosenfeld opened Rosenfeld’s Bagels, offering just a half dozen flavors of bagels and as many spreads. At first, he wasn’t sure if Boston was ready for this new taste, but it didn’t take long for his creations to gain recognition, first in the Jewish community and then expanding to the entire Newton area.
By 1976, the business at Rosenfeld’s was growing rapidly and Marc needed help in the kitchen. He brought on board Peter DeRosa, a Master Baker who helped to increase production while still preserving the traditional techniques that made Rosenfeld’s Bagels so great tasting and well-known. With the addition of more staff, the menu began expanding to more flavors of bagels, more spreads and handmade Challah bread that became known throughout the area as incomparable.
As the year went on,
word got out. Rosenfeld’s Bagels became more than a Jewish-community favorite as it was reviewed and adored by the Boston area’s top publications, including The Boston Globe, The Improper Bostonian, The Boston Phoenix, The Newton Tab and Boston Magazine. Rosenfeld’s even received mention in a 2014 fictional story in The New Yorker magazine as THE place in Boston to get your bagels (that’s quite a compliment from a New Yorker!).
Fifty years has passed, and the number of bagels we’ve made and the number of people we’ve served are both too many to count, but you can read some of the highlights on our Wall of Memories.
The Best
“You can try other places but this is the place in greater Boston for challah and bagels. Closest to NY I’ve found. Just go.”
“The place in Boston to get your bagels!”
Featured in Cook’s Illustrated
“There, I spent the morning with owner Michael Lombardo and his team, learning how they turn out their glossy, rich, and tender braided loaves. By the end of it, I had a deep appreciation for his knowledge of the bread and the pace, rhythm, and muscle memory that go into bakery-scale production; I even came away with a new braiding technique that I applied to my own recipe.”
