Serving up bagels and extras at two locations

BAGELS APLENTY are found at this Wakefield shop managed by Scott Lieberman. His mother, Nancy, co-manages another Bagelz, located at URI. /
BAGELS APLENTY are found at this Wakefield shop managed by Scott Lieberman. His mother, Nancy, co-manages another Bagelz, located at URI. /

The two bagel shops are six miles apart, close enough for the Liebermans to start their day together.
“All three of us start … at the Wakefield store. We pick up our bagels there,” says Nancy Lieberman, the owner of Bagelz, the Bagel Bakery. The Wakefield shop is just off Main Street. The other, with the same name, is at the University of Rhode Island.

Nancy and her husband, Steve, married 35 years, manage the shop at URI. Their son Scott Lieberman, 27, manages the store in Wakefield, which opened last August.
Both shops are part café, part restaurant, with paintings and photographs on the walls, comfortable leather chairs, tables and free WiFi. And the menus are similar: bagels and spreads, sandwiches, soups and salads.
But there are differences too.
Some items are only at the Wakefield store, like sandwich wraps. Other items sell much better at one store than the other. “At URI the students order a lot of Free Trade coffee – Sumatran, Mexican, and Peruvian. They ask for it,” says Nancy Lieberman. “The Free Trade is catching on in Wakefield as well – but it’s huge at URI.”
And The URI shop depends on business from students. Nancy likes to work the front of the store, the counter. And Steve likes to work in the back, handling orders. “The students know us. They’re our friends,” says Nancy Lieberman. Nancy and Steve get a little rest when the students are on break. But young Scott works seven days a week, regardless.
He has to. His store is new and has a bakery that operates throughout the night. This summer will be his first running the business. Scott says his challenge is going to be getting customers through the doors. There are two other cafés close by, and a Starbucks. But Scott has ambition, and the experience of growing up in a family-run business on his side.
“He grew up in the bagel business,” Nancy Lieberman said. We have pictures of him at 10 climbing around the big ovens.”
Nancy and Steve have been selling bagels for 15 years. Their original store was in Wakefield in an old shopping mall that housed other independent local businesses – a fishing tackle store, an eyeglass store and a pet store. Then CVS/pharmacy came in and bought the whole place, displacing all the independents. Nancy and Steve found a space at URI and reopened six years ago.
Scott worked odd jobs before joining the business. “My parents and I talked about opening another shop and they let me take off with it. I couldn’t have done it without them and I don’t think they could’ve done it without me,” he says.
Scott’s parents secured the loans. Scott did the grunt work – he building phase which took months. “It used to be an agricultural store and smelled like animal feed,” he says.
The Wakefield store was designed to be the main location. The large refrigerators and freezers can accommodate items for both stores. It was also designed to be a bakery, with big windows that let costumers see what’s goes on inside.
“We wanted the space to be both comfortable to hang out in, or to simply grab a bagel and coffee on the fly,” says Scott Lieberman.
“If the URI shop is about students, then,” Scott said, “We’re trying to make the Wakefield store more about family and townsfolk. The best way to do this is word of mouth.” •

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