After hand-rolling 20,000 bagels over the past year, you’d think Miles Odell would be absolutely sick of them. But when you watch him reverently select one, slice it, and use the inside surface like a plate to present his intricate flavor combinations, it’s clear that the opposite is true.
Odell loves bagels the way that only someone who grew up in New Jersey can. Because even while he attended culinary school in New York and then traveled to Kyoto, Japan, to cook in Michelin-starred restaurants as part of a three-year culinary outreach program, he was teaching himself how to make bagels — like a hobby — working on his technique, perfecting a recipe.
Bagels at Odell’s Bagels in Denver on Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
“Learning to hand-roll each one into a circular shape” — that has been the hardest part of that experience, he explained recently. “I’ll never stop learning about bagels.”
Odell will share the results of that education with the rest of Denver as he opens Odell’s Bagels in the former Denver Bread Company building at 3200 Irving St.; the store is taking pre-orders on specific days and will add more days shortly.
He’ll also set a new standard in Denver’s bagel culture, which has been leavening over the past two years with the arrival of the Call Your Mother bagel chain and the recent or impending expansion of local options like Rosenberg’s, Leroy’s Bagels, Rich Spirit and Moe’s.
The brightly lit shop — boasting a long wooden counter and tightly drawn murals with bagel artwork — will sell classics like sesame, poppyseed, everything and pumpernickel as well as rosemary, brown sugar cinnamon and furikake, a seaweed-based Japanese seasoning blend. Each is hand-rolled and made from one of three different freshly milled local flours.
Related: 6 of the best bagel shops around Denver
Heirloom Tomato (rosemary bagel, chili crisp, chives and local tomatoes) at Odell’s Bagel in Denver on Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
But it’s in the sandwiches where the chef’s kitchen experience will shine. The menu will start with lox and cream cheese — but not just any lox. Odell is working with a smokehouse in upstate New York for the Nova and Pastrami-seasoned fish, and plans to slice it by hand, rather than with a machine, using the careful technique he learned while working with sushi in Japan.
There also will be bagels with koji-cured beef pastrami, sablefish, egg and cheese, and rotating fruits and vegetables, depending on what’s in season. Odell’s will open with an heirloom tomato sandwich, for instance, prepared with salsa macha, chives and chile crisp. But that item might disappear in the winter. “I don’t like a refrigerated tomato. I only like them in season,” he said.
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The sandwiches will be served open-face, and most will be sold to go, although there is a limited amount of bar seating inside and plans for a small patio outdoors. In addition, Odell’s will offer packaged “pantry items” from a display case, like house-whipped cream cheese, house-made pickles, jams and mustard, along with tinned fish, salmon roe and caviar.
Odell’s original plan in Denver was to open a Japanese restaurant, which is why he sold bento boxes and breakfast sandos at farmers markets for a year. But as soon as he saw the inside of the Denver Bread Company space — that bakery closed in 2023 after nearly 30 years in business — he knew he had to change course. “I couldn’t see anything else but a bagel shop,” he said.
Bagels are comfort food for Odell, who grew up eating them year-round, but especially during Jewish holidays, and he is taking inspiration here from his favorite shops back East. Then again, those stores may not offer peach jam with Thai basil flowers.
In addition to food, Odell’s will have its own wine program and coffee from Denver’s Middle State roasters.
And as for the competition in town, he said, “I’m just happy to be part of the scene. What’s happening with bagels in Denver is great.”
Here are some other recent or upcoming bagel moves.
Rosenberg’s Bagels and Delicatessen, which opened in Five Points in 2014, has since expanded with a location in the Stanley Marketplace in Aurora and by merging with the Bagel Store in 2017. The company also supplies other delis, including Zaidy’s, which just began using Rosenberg’s bagels (along with its smoked fish, rye breads and pastries). Rosenberg’s owner and New York City native Joshua Pollack also owns a pizza place and a sandwich shop.
Call Your Mother’s “Lil Deli” food truck in Platt Park on Sept. 6, 2024. (Matt Geiger/BusinessDen)
Call Your Mother Deli has made a huge splash in Denver over the past 18 months, opening three stores — in the Berkeley, Capitol Hill and Hilltop neighborhoods — in quick succession. The mini-chain’s other locations are in Washington, D.C., Virginia and Maryland. All three openings drew long lines because of the company’s name popularity on the East Coast; it specializes in off-kilter sandwiches and bagel flavors. In September, Call Your Mother opened a food truck-like trailer at 567 Louisiana Ave. and is planning a similar trailer in the River North Art District. The point of both locations is to test the demand before deciding whether to add permanent stores.
Moe’s Broadway Bagel is the bubbe and zeyde of bagel stores in Colorado, having been founded in Boulder in 1992. It currently has seven locations in Boulder, Longmont, Louisville and Denver, and is planning a second Denver store at 1390 S. Colorado Blvd. this winter. In addition to its retail shops, Moe’s supplies numerous restaurants and coffee shops locally.
Leroy’s Bagels, an independent bagel shop operating near Sloan’s Lake since 2017, is planning to open a second location at 1553 Platte St. this fall or winter.
Rich Spirit Bagels, located in Gold’s Marketplace at 10081 W. 26th Ave., opened in March. The upscale shop is owned by Shawn Bergin, who also owns pastry store Bakery Four.