New owners are stepping in to take over the Bagel Barrel next month.
The popular Doylestown Borough staple — which often has lines stretching out of its doors — made the announcement this week on Facebook saying the 31-year-old shop was being sold.
Its original owner, Patrick Murphy, said he could’ve never fathomed how much Bagel Barrel would take off when he first launched the business with two partners in 1993.
“I didn’t realize it was going to be this big and this popular. It’s been a fun ride. I have no words to describe how thankful I am. How do you sum up 31 years of being in Doylestown and being supported by everybody? It’s just unbelievable,” he said in an interview Thursday.
Over three decades, Murphy’s ability to create what he calls a “true New York-style bagel” helped to build a huge following of regulars for the West State Street shop, making it not only a favorite among town locals, but a place people would travel several miles to get to.
His talents were derived from three years of working under fifth-generation New York bagel maker Alfred Khan at Abel Bagels in Princeton.
“I learned it the old-fashioned way, right down to the mixer, an old-fashioned mixer, slow and steady, which builds a more consistent dough,” Murphy said. “He would yell at me every day, telling me I was doing it wrong.”
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Eventually, in spite of the tough love, he mastered the technique so well he was encouraged by Khan to start a bagel shop of his own, which brought Murphy to Doylestown.
“I knew this was the town to do it in. There’s no other town like it,” he said.
And in return, Doylestown embraced the new shop.
With its fresh bagels, more than a dozen cream cheese spreads made in-house and its specialty breakfast and lunch sandwiches, Bagel Barrel became a ritual stop in the busy lives of people heading to work, teens on their way home from school and a meeting spot for friends on the weekends.
It was more than Murphy could’ve ever imagined, but recently he was faced with a difficult choice. When he learned both his parents, who live in Florida, needed to have surgery, he knew family had to come first.
“I realized I need to be there because they won’t be able to get anywhere without my help. It was a tough decision,” he said.
So, Murphy met with dozens of prospective buyers, feeling them out to see who would care for his recipes, customers and staff the say he had for so long.
"You just get a feeling about people. It's like finding someone to take care of your own children," he said. "I told them they had to keep the staff, and they had to keep the recipes going. And I’ll still be here for a month after they take over to make sure everything is running right, that the dough is right, and the cream cheese is right.”
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Reporter Michele Haddon covers local news, small business, food and drink, economic revitalization, art and culture for The Intelligencer and Bucks County Courier Times at PhillyBurbs.com. Please consider supporting local journalism with a subscription.
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