For those who are interested.

We started Jacob’s Bagels in March 2020 after waking up one morning with a craving for a fresh bagel. I was not a baker at the time, but I am now.

My wife and I travelled around Sussex and then further up north. We stopped in London and in other towns, and we even went as far as Liverpool. We met some amazing people people and plenty of places selling bagels, but very few baked them themselves. Most reheated or bought them in. That pushed me to try baking my own.

We gave our early bagels to family, friends, and neighbours. One day someone knocked on the door and asked if we would bake some for them and said they would pay us. We tried it. They liked them. That was the point where Jacob’s Bagels became a business.

You may have noticed that my name isnt Jacob. There is a Jacob and he is a dentist in Eastbourne. I have known Jacob for a little while and when I was in the business building process and trying to come up with a trendy name, Jacob poped into my head and said hello. I very quickly thought Jacob's Bagels and the rest is history.

A typical day for me starts at 2:30 in the morning. That is when we bake. We now have twenty three helpers and together we bake around fifty thousand bagels each year. These go out to cafés, restaurants, garden centres, and farm shops across West Sussex. We use organic ingredients whenever possible and we run our ovens on solar power when the weather allows.

We learnt a lot from other companies. They shared advice and pushed us to think wider. Because of that advice we launched Bagels by Post and our baking courses. Horsham District Council helped us as well. They offered networking and funding from different streams. That support made a real difference.

The one thing we did not have was our own outlet. We tried selling from our bakery for about a year, but the location sits on a busy road and people struggled to stop. We needed a proper shop where people could walk in, sit down, and enjoy the food.

After plenty of research we chose Worthing as our first shop. We are already looking at locations for the second and third sites.

Our Worthing shop is set to open at the end of this month in Bath Place. The area has good footfall and the type of people who support local businesses. We will serve filled bagels, unfilled bagels, cake, and good coffee. We want fast service, fair pricing, and a friendly atmosphere.

We expect to need around ten people to help run the shop and we will recruit locally. We want the team to grow with us as we expand.