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Lisa Rossiello followed a well-worn path from Long Island to Florida nearly 20 years ago, but she’s not shaking her roots.
Not when much of the menu at her family’s new bagel shop in Rockledge, Fla. — yes, it’s named Long Island Bagels — pays tribute to the Island with its own twists on the New York breakfast staple.
There’s The Sunrise Highway (two eggs and cheese), The Hampton (two eggs and sliced ham), The Manhasset (chicken salad, bacon, avocado and tomato), The 5 Towner (smoked salmon with a “generous schmear” of cream cheese, tomato, red onion and capers) and more.
The names are often an instant hook for the shop’s countless customers who have migrated from the Empire State to the Sunshine State.
“We were actually quite shocked at how many people have come in and the first question they ask is, ‘Who’s from Long Island here?’” said Rossiello, who grew up in West Babylon. “The conversation then gets rolling. ‘Where are you from? I’m from here, how long have you been here?’”
The trek to Brevard County on Florida’s Space Coast was a familiar one for the longtime schoolteacher and her husband, Dominic, who vacationed there along the Atlantic Ocean prior to heading south for good with their then-3-year-old twin sons.
“My husband was tired of the Long Island to New York City grind on the railroad every day,” she recalled. “He said, ‘You know, it would be a really great place to have our kids grow up.’”
Outfitted with familiar touches — think photos of Sunken Meadow State Park and the Jones Beach Water Tower plus an “RM” sign from the Robert Moses Causeway — Long Island Bagels opened in February to rave reviews from New Yorkers craving a taste of home.
Those are hardly the only New York elements in the shop’s bagel-making equation, which involves making its own dough, boiling bagels and using a rotating wood-planked oven.
Making it happen
Rossiello’s husband and brother, who are investors in Long Island Bagels, also traveled to New York City prior to the shop’s opening to pick the brains of some of the city’s best-known bagel-makers.
“All of the iconic bagel shops — Tal Bagels to Ess-a-Bagel to Tompkins Square Bagels,” she said. “They actually went and toured all of their kitchens, spoke with the owners or managers of these bagel shops and then took a bagel-making class.”
The shop also relies on NY Watermaker, a New Jersey-based company that touts the ability of its water-filtration system to enable restaurants to create New York bagels or New York pizza anywhere.
“I believe that it is part of the magic of the dough that makes a New York bagel,” Rossiello said.
The shift to bagel-making came after she worked for more than 20 years as an elementary-school teacher and reading coach on Long Island and in Florida. She now teaches digitally, while juggling her duties at the bagel shop.
“I love the shop, I love meeting everybody that comes in and is just so excited about our product,” she said.
Some of the meetings have come via social media posts spreading the word on Long Island bagels.
Rossiello said this social media post was particularly instrumental in bringing in new customers, including one couple with Long Island roots that traveled two hours to the store.
“Where they are in Central Florida, there’s no good bagels,” she said. “They left with a couple dozen bagels and cream cheeses and were just so excited.
“The power of social media is unbelievable.”
Nearly half a year in to the new venture, Rossiello said the initial response been “beyond our expectations,” a sign, perhaps, that the only holes in the family’s business plan are in the bagels themselves.
“If you would have told me that this was in my future, I would have laughed,” she said.
Featured photo: Meet the family. Lisa and Dominic Rossiello, formerly of West Babylon and both appearing on the far left in the photo, are surrounded by family at their new Long Island Bagels shop at 5410 Murrell Rd. No. 201 in Rockledge, Fla. (courtesy)
