April 19, 2023
Niko Kotopoulos/Nest Studios
Spread Bagelry will open seven new locations in Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Georgia by the end of 2023. Pictured above is a rendering for its upcoming location in Newtown Square, slated to open around Thanksgiving.
A popular Philadelphia bagel shop is planning to open seven new locations by the end of 2023, including its first three outside of the Philly region.
Spread Bagelry, best known for its hand-rolled, Montreal-style bagels, is set to open four new stores in the Philly suburbs, two locations in Charleston and an outpost in Savannah over the next several months. The small chain has opened at least one store each year since 2019, the Philadelphia Business Journal reported.
Spread Bagelry customers can see the bagel-making process firsthand, watching as the baked goods are paddled from the oven. The shop offers 15 types of loose bagels, as well as coffee and sandwiches made with fish and meat almost entirely prepared in-house. Spread also makes its own cream cheese, including gourmet flavors like apple brown butter, jalapeño lime and maple bacon.
Montreal-style bagels differ from other types because they are hand-shaped, boiled in honey water and baked in a wood-fire oven. The result is a crispier and sweeter bread, noticeably different from the traditional New York bagel. The process pulls its inspiration from Polish and other Eastern European immigrants who brought the method with them to North America.
Since opening its doors in Rittenhouse Square in 2010, Spread Bagelry has expanded steadily in the region, most recently opening a location in Cherry Hill. As the company began looking for ways to expand, commercial landlords began offering attractive deals to bring the shop's "activated energy for the morning and lunchtime crowds" into their towns, Jamie Schrotberger, the CEO of Spread, said.
"We were (already) looking to expand outside of the region, but we were also trying to get the learning experience of operating a store outside of Philadelphia," Schrotberger continued. "We saw opportunities in different towns and cities, and thought about which ones really resemble Philly and the suburbs. We decided on Charleston and Mt. Pleasant, a suburb just outside of Charleston, as an ideal landscape for a Philly crowd that could enjoy our products and whose demographics are similar to those we see in Philly or out on the Main Line."
The first of seven stores will open in the Promenade at Upper Dublin in May, followed by stores in Ambler and Mt. Pleasant scheduled to open in early June. Three stores in Wynnewood, Charleston and Savannah are slated to open between August and September.
Spread Bagelry's 17th store will open in Newtown Square around Thanksgiving. The Bucks County location is expected to be 50% bigger than the company's typical shop, Schrotberger said.
Spread Bagelry may establish different hours of operation and culinary offerings for each store depending on consumer needs. Though the stores are typically open from 7 a.m. until 3 p.m., the company is exploring longer hours as a way to potentially add new products and develop community-specific menu offerings.
"Every store is unique and based on the neighborhood surrounding it," Schrotberger said. "We have our more artistic store on South Street or our store in Bryn Mawr, which is right near the train station and was designed to look like a vintage train. I think that because every store's design is focused on its neighborhood, there will be some added features even though the core of the business is the same."
After this year's expansion, Spread Bagelry is eyeing locations closer to home in New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C.
