A new bagel shop rolling out sourdough loaves made with a starter that's more than four decades old is set to open Monday at 81 Fifth Avenue in Park Slope. Caputo Bagels, the brainchild of fifth-generation Brooklyn baker James Caputo and restaurateur Rafael “Rafi” Hasid, will sell hand-rolled bagels, cream cheeses, smoked fish, sandwiches, pastries and coffee out of the new storefront starting Oct. 5.
The shop's arrival comes after Caputo's family bakery, Caputo's Bake Shop, shut its longtime Carroll Gardens storefront in April, a Carroll Gardens spot known for handmade breads, Sicilian-style loaves, Italian pastries and lard bread. As Brooklyn Paper notes, that closure capped a run sources differ on: Brooklyn Magazine reported the bakery had operated for 124 years, while Grub Street put the figure at 122 years. Either way, the lineage traces back to 1904, when Sicilian immigrant Giovanni Caputo opened the family bakery in South Brooklyn, according to whatnow.com.
James Caputo has been clear that Caputo Bagels isn't an attempt to resurrect what came before. He has said the new shop is not intended to recreate his family's bakery, nor is it meant to compete with traditional New York bagel shops. “This isn't going to be a traditional New York bagel,” he has said, according to the seed reporting compiled for this piece.
A Two-Day Process Built Around a 45-Year-Old Starter
The bagels at the new shop are small-batch and hand-rolled, per whatnow.com, with each batch taking roughly two days to prepare, including an overnight cold fermentation. The sourdough starter powering the whole operation dates back at least 45 years, the same outlet reports. Caputo and Hasid have said they developed the bagels as their own thing, less concerned with matching or beating any competing bagels, as Grub Street notes.
The opening menu, per whatnow.com, includes plain, sesame and everything bagels for $2.50 each, available individually or by the half-dozen or dozen. The shop's signature item is a $4 Lard Provolone Bagel that folds salami, lard and provolone directly into the dough, according to parkslopepulse.com. Cream cheese options will span scallion, za'atar, olive, harissa and tofu varieties, while the fish case will carry smoked salmon, whitefish and tuna salad for open-faced sandwiches.
Beyond Bagels: Breakfast Sandwiches, Pastries and a Caffeine Menu
Breakfast sandwiches with bacon or sausage, two eggs and cheddar round out the savory side of the menu. On the pastry case, expect croissants, chocolate and almond croissants, cinnamon raisin rolls, banana bread and orange cake. The beverage list includes coffee, espresso drinks, tea and fresh-squeezed orange juice, per whatnow.com.
Seating counts vary by outlet: whatnow.com describes about 25 seats for dine-in customers alongside grab-and-go options, while Grub Street describes an airy, 26-seat counter-service shop. Caputo Bagels is slated to be open Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Two Longtime Friends, One New Venture
Hasid, who founded 6R Hospitality Group and also owns Miriam and 1803 NYC, has known Caputo for more than two decades, and the pair developed Caputo Bagels together. Caputo has said working with Hasid lets him focus on the parts of the business he cares most about — the dough, product development and hands-on baking. Caputo's Bake Shop closed in late April.
Caputo has described the new shop as having an identity of its own, distinct from the bakery his family ran for generations. Still, the throughline between old and new isn't lost on those who've watched Carroll Gardens' baking scene evolve. “We keep a little bit of the old neighborhood in the new neighborhood — that's what we do,” according to bklyner.com's reporting on the Caputo family's approach to blending tradition with reinvention. Whether judged by the neighborhood's new bagel standard or its old bread one, Caputo Bagels brings the family's baking traditions into a venture built, this time, around a different kind of dough entirely.
