Steve’s innovative bagels flourish by bringing New York flavours to Belfast

The small bakery is now an integral part of the burgeoning food community that also includes Flout Pizza, Indie Fude, Velo Cheese and Boundary Brewery, the latter one of the first of a new generation of craft brewers in the city. Bullhouse East, another leading craft brewery, is nearby at the Arches on the Holywood Road.

“Banana Block is a really supportive development that has given us lots of space to grow our small business and to try new ideas in hot snacks,” says Steve.

“All the traders work well together and help each other out. Customers from the Newtownards Road and other parts of Belfast are all very positive. It’s a great environment for a small enterprise.”

Part of the Go Succeed scheme for smaller enterprises, Bodega Bagels has also benefited from the experience and the contacts of business mentor Derek Andrews, who has vast knowledge of commerce.

“Derek has an amazing list of contacts in business and is helping us in so many ways,” continues Steve.

Bodega Bagels has also now a presence at the popular Trade Market street food court on Belfast’s Dublin Road and provides catering for corporate and other events including weddings and birthday parties.

Production of Steve’s classic bagels, especially the salt beef, has doubled as customers have reacted to his imaginative marketing schemes that include promotions for people in the area now working from home especially in IT and computers, an industry that was once Steve’s career. Other initiatives include sessions specifically for parents and tots, yoga classes and a book club.

Steve Orr makes pioneering New York-style bagels at the dynamic Banana Block in Belfast

“Banana Block really is a great social community. We find home workers becoming involved increasingly for social exchanges. Home working, which has grown substantially since the pandemic, can be lonely, and many people are keen to meet others and chat over one of our bagels and a couple of cups of coffee. We offer free refills to encourage them,” explains Steve.

He’s created a new and exciting menu to boost sales of the classic New York bagels he first developed with Kirsty, his wife and co-owner of the business and also an experienced marketer.

Based at Portview Trade Centre, Banana Block describes itself as a “living museum and a centre for a broad range of community events”. It celebrates businessman William Richardson, who started growing bananas in 1911, the first person to do so in the British Isles.

Richardson was also the head gardener to Sir Otto Jaffe, the owner of the now closed Strand Spinning Mill, which in the 1930s was a key feature within a vibrant east Belfast community and a global centre of innovation in manufacturing and technology. Jaffe was also a former Belfast Lord Mayor and a noted educationalist

behind the Jaffe Institute on Cliftonville Road.

Steve was inspired by the experience of enjoying bagels on a trip to New York with Kirsty, a trip that led them to decide on setting up a small bakery in their home kitchen on Ladas Drive.

The range of freshly baked and hand shaped bagels with cream fillings soon proved popular with neighbours and other local people. They have even attracted endorsement from bagel lovers from New York.

Bodega Bagels is another outcome of the coronavirus lockdown which encouraged Steven to look at other business opportunities especially in food, an area he enjoys.

“We wanted to try something new and quite different from my then career,” Steve, who is originally from Ballymena, continues. He was then working as an IT delivery manager.

They looked around to see what could be made here. Steven remembered the bagels he had loved in New York a couple of years ago: “This led me to start looking around to see if home-baked bagels were readily available in Belfast. They weren’t then. We decided to explore bagels and had, of course, to find out the best way to make exceptional snacks at home.”

They turned to the internet and social media sites like Facebook, Reddit and Instagram for help. The search brought fast responses from experts and established bagel shops in New York. Their quest for recipes brought a particularly enthusiastic response from Scott Rossillo, the owner of the world-famous Bagel Store in New York’s Brooklyn district. Rossillo, the famed inventor of the rainbow bagel, provided initial advice and has kept in contact.

As well as a successful range of authentic New York bagels, Bodega Bagels stocks cream cheese spreads - schmears - for even greater taste.