Where’s London’s oldest…bagel bakery?

Founded in 1855, the Beigel Shop on Brick Lane in the East End claims to be the oldest bagel bakery in the UK.

PICTURE: Ollie Singleton/Unsplash

The shop, located at 155 Brick Lane, is sometimes known as the ‘yellow shop’, thanks to its bright yellow sign, to distinguish it from the ‘white one’, another bagel bakery a few doors down, Beigel Bake.

Two brothers named David Barel and Aron Zelman took over the business, then known as the Evering Bakery, in 1987, and were, according to the shop’s website, joined by their sister Mazal White soon after.

The shop, which changed the spelling of bagel to beigel in its name in 2002 in reflection of its Yiddish roots, introduced a bagel-shaping machine in 1994 but many products are still hand-made. According to the website, the bakery these days makes more than 7,000 bagels a day.

The shop, which is famously open 24 hours a day, did briefly close for several months last year, explaining on social media when it reopened in June that the closure had been for a range of reasons including a long-standing family dispute over the building’s ownership and rents and the health struggles of Aron.

They announced that the next generation – including Aron’s 22-year-old quadruplets and Mazal’s three children – would be taking over the business and launched a funding raising effort to help with some of financial burdens the shop was facing.

For more, see www.thebeigelshop.com.