A new bagel shop on Main Street in Sebastopol sold out of everything within three hours of opening in mid-August, then did it again the very next day. Bonnie Bagels, the East Coast-style shop from owner Michael Sousa, occupies the former Hippizzazz pizza space at 280 S. Main St. — just a few doors from Grateful Bagel, the Sonoma County institution that has been baking bagels since 1979.
Sousa, who grew up near Boston, spent about 18 months planning the shop before it opened, according to Sonoma Magazine. He told the outlet that the benefits of bringing Bonnie Bagels to the community outweighed the awkwardness of setting up shop so close to Grateful Bagel. That proximity — the two shops sit at 280 and 300 S. Main St., respectively — has already stirred debate on local forums like Reddit and Nextdoor over whether Sebastopol needs two bagel shops on the same block, according to the Sebastopol Times.
An East Coast Recipe Rooted in Family Memory
The shop's name and branding trace back to Sousa's childhood on Bonnie Lane in Lowell, Massachusetts, where he used to ride along with his mother to buy morning bagels in her 1984 Ford Country Squire station wagon — a car that now serves as Bonnie Bagels' official company vehicle, per the Sebastopol Times report. Sousa met his executive chef, Greg Kalergis, at a family Thanksgiving, according to Sonoma Magazine's reporting. Kalergis had no prior bagel-baking background before joining the shop; he had instead trained in French laminated pastry dough and worked as a Neapolitan pizzaiolo, the Sebastopol Times reports, and those techniques now shape the kitchen's approach to the classic New York-style bagel.
The pair got mentoring from friends at Bageltopia, the University Avenue bakery in Berkeley co-founded by Dan Graf, whose four-day cold-fermentation method earned praise from The New York Times for matching Brooklyn-quality bagels, according to Bageltopia's own account. Bonnie Bagels makes its kettle-cooked bagels — boiled, then baked — using a live sourdough starter and a slate-tile baking process rather than standard commercial yeast, per Bonnie Bagels & Co.'s own description of its methods. Kalergis said the shop's salt bagels signal that Bonnie Bagels is a genuine classic East Coast bagel shop, according to Sonoma Magazine.
A Menu Built Around Classics — and One Personal Addition
The menu includes plain, salt, sesame, poppy seed, onion, asiago, cheddar jalapeño, and everything bagels, along with open-faced options topped with lox, tuna salad, or egg salad. Schmears run from scallion and caper dill to green olive, chile crisp, and smoked salmon, plus a vegan cream cheese option, breakfast sandwiches, coffee, and espresso drinks, per Sonoma Magazine's rundown of the offerings. Bonnie Bagels also developed a dedicated gluten-free bagel recipe, a decision Sousa made specifically because his wife eats gluten-free, according to Bonnie Bagels & Co.
The shop is open Wednesday through Sunday from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. After selling out on both its opening day and the day after, Bonnie Bagels closed for two days to regroup before resuming service with more of everything, Sonoma Magazine reported.
Sign Permitting Delays and a Main Street in Flux
Before the ovens even started, Bonnie Bagels ran into a municipal snag: permitting issues interrupted the painting of its exterior sign, according to Sonoma Magazine, and the shop expects to finish the artwork within the next couple of weeks. The Sebastopol Times reports that the city's Design Review Board granted Bonnie Bagels a special exception to the sign ordinance's size limits in July, ruling that its hand-painted, custom artistic style suited a locally owned independent business.
The 280 S. Main St. space, located across from HopMonk, sat vacant after family-owned pizzeria Hippizzazz closed its dine-in business at midnight on New Year's Eve 2024, part of a wave of downtown departures that also included Woodfour Brewery and Bohemian Creamery, the Sebastopol Times reported at the time. Even so, downtown Sebastopol entered 2025 with a low commercial vacancy rate overall, with nearby destination The Barlow reaching near-capacity, according to the same Sebastopol Times report — a sign that the storefront turnover reflected individual business decisions more than a broader downturn.
Grateful Bagel, meanwhile, has held its ground in Sonoma County for decades and expanded its regional footprint in November 2024 with a new storefront in Penngrove, according to Excellerate Real Estate. Whether Bonnie Bagels' arrival changes the calculus for the neighborhood's original bagel shop remains an open question for Sebastopol residents watching the two storefronts operate blocks apart on the same stretch of Main Street.
