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A few months ago, two neighboring Long Beach businesses started kicking around ways to combine the things they each do best.
Max Bialystok & Company on East Park Avenue makes bagels. Its next-door neighbor, Francesco’s, makes pizza.
So they figured, why not put a pizza on a giant everything-seeded bagel?
“It was one of those things where we are always throwing ideas around together with them to see what we could do, and everyone loved this idea,” Carrie Rampino, who owns Max Bialystok with her husband, Joseph, told Greater Long Island.
What started as a Sunday-only collaboration over the past few weeks is now becoming an everyday offering. Starting Monday, Aug. 31, Francesco’s will offer made-to-order pizza bagels, with Max Bialystok supplying fresh, hand-rolled dough each morning and Francesco’s finishing them with sauce, cheese and whatever toppings customers want.
Max Bialystok will initially make about five or six 10-inch bagels each day, enough for 10 to 12 pizza bagel pies.
The idea actually grew out of customer demand.
“They have always been asking us for something like this, but Francesco’s is an amazing neighbor and we would never step on their toes,” Carrie said. “So we were talking to them one day and said, yeah, let’s just work together and do it.”
The businesses initially planned to use plain bagels. Then they tried one coated in everything seasoning.
“It just made it so much better,” Carrie said. “It was perfect. The seeds made it really feel like a pizza and a bagel.”
Getting there took some trial and error.
The bagels can’t be fully baked in Max Bialystok’s ovens because they still have to make a second trip into Francesco’s oven after the sauce, cheese and toppings are added.
“It took a lot of testing, because it’s not just as easy as making a bagel and giving it to them,” Joseph said. “You can’t bake it fully, because if we did, then it would burn when they put it in their oven with all the toppings.”
The finished product proved popular during a three-Sunday test run, enough for the businesses to make it an everyday offering.
“I had a feeling they would become popular,” Joseph said. “I just didn’t realize it would happen this quickly.”
Joseph and Carrie’s favorite combination so far is pepperoni and vodka sauce topped with hot honey.
“The combination of hot honey with pepperoni is so good,” Carrie said. “It’s not too spicy but the flavor is perfect.”
Then again, the whole collaboration seems particularly fitting for where it was born.
“What’s more Long Island than a pizza bagel?” she added with a laugh.
Top: Joseph and Carrie Rampino’s favorite giant pizza bagel combination so far is pepperoni and vodka sauce topped with hot honey. (Credit: GLI/Andrew Rappaport)
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