Bagel spot serves New York-style bagels with a Hawaii twist
HONOLULU — While the world shut down to stop the spread of COVID-19, Talia Bongolan-Schwartz was in Oahu, where she had moved to attend graduate school, missing her home: New York.
In her freezer, she kept a stash of bagels, her comfort food, which she had hand carried on the plane from New York to Hawaii. One day, she realized they were all gone. Talia’s wife, Kelly Bongolan-Schwartz, convinced her that together they could fill the void by making bagels. It took a few tries, but eventually, the pair made a bagel that tasted like home.
“We just got to a point where I tasted it and there was just nostalgia,” Talia said while talking with Spectrum News.
This was the beginning of Tali’s Bagels & Schmear. In Nov. 2021, the couple started selling their bagels via Instagram before expanding to the Kakaako and Kailua farmers’ markets. This month, they opened a brick-and-mortar store in Ward Village.
