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Yero Rudzinskas, owner of Baltik’s Bagel
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Baltik’s Bagel is located at 6801 Forest Hill Ave. in Richmond’s South Side.
Located on Forest Hill Avenue in Stratford Hills, Baltik’s Bagel has been causing buzz in the South Side corridor for months, especially for drivers caught in the long-running construction along the thoroughfare. An LED sign outside has been teasing passersby with the phrase “Coming Soon,” but the wait is over.
Helmed by owner Yero Rudzinskas, Baltik’s Bagel opens officially on Oct. 14 at 6801 Forest Hill Ave. However, this week, the shop will be offering free bagel specials during limited hours leading up to the grand opening.
Describing Baltik’s offerings as “kettle boiled, chef driven and lightning fast,” Rudzinskas says his vision is to offer a high-quality bagel shop experience with the convenience of a quick-service breakfast.
Rudzinskas acquired the 1,500-square-foot location, complete with drive-thru, earlier this year. While it may not have been exactly what he first envisioned, he says, the building is well suited to its purpose. Bagels are inherently a quick, grab-and-go food, and the South Side is devoid of a shop dedicated to the carb-laden baked goods.
“We really wanted to be kind of outside of the main hub of Richmond, and South Side is perfect for that,” he says. “We have some great bagel options, but there’s three [independent bagel shops in the metro area] for 1.3 million people.” Rudzinskas refers to Chewy’s Bagels in Carytown, Cupertino’s NY Bagels in Henrico and Nate’s Bagels in the Fan; Nate’s is set to open a second location in the coming months in Scott’s Addition, and these shops will be joined by Julio’s Bagels in North Side from the owner of Pizza Bones in Union Hill.
Rudzinskas adds that he’s ready to produce a lot of product, having converted the freezer in the space to an enormous walk-in. “We’ve got this massive, perfect fermentation chamber where we can ferment probably 3,000 bagels for 24 hours.”
The space formerly housed chain eateries Dunkin’ and Go Bird. A look inside reveals its fast-food roots, from the giant ordering screen to the industrial-sized coffee maker. There is something nostalgic and familiar about a drive-thru, however, and Rudzinskas sees an opportunity bring his spin to food on the go.
“The idea that someone can roll up in, like, a Suburban full of their kids and get a hot, handmade breakfast they could feel great about, that’s super exciting,” he says. “And I think that this actually kind of allows us to operate in this Venn diagram between, like, bagel shop, which everybody associates with quality, yeah, and QSR [quick-service restaurant] breakfast, which maybe people don’t.”
The bagels at Baltik’s are hand rolled and kettle boiled, showcased in baskets overflowing with classics including everything, poppyseed and plain and more offbeat flavors such as bacon, blueberry, lemon pepper and honey. Rudzinskas describes the bagels as super chewy and dense, yet still airy, with an egg-washed crust.
Sandwiches include the River City Sunrise, with scrambled eggs, melted cheddar, scallion cream cheese, and bacon or sausage, or the Southern Picnic, featuring housemade chicken salad and pickled and crispy onions, each served on a soft bagel, or “softie”. If you’ve never heard of a softie, that’s because it’s something of a proprietary product.
Described as a solution for slippage with egg sandwiches, softies are a lighter version of a bagel with a tiny dugout mean to help secure the interior ingredients. “They’re kettle boiled, the same size, but made to be lighter,” Rudzinskas says. “We’ve sort of taken the protein strands that make bagels really chewy and dense and shortened them a bit.”
Other options include the open-faced Avosmash, which features avocado, pickled red onion and peppadew pepper cream cheese on a toasted everything bagel, or The Snowbird, which layers smoked salmon, capers, tomato, red onion and cucumber over whipped cream cheese.
For cream cheese, Baltik’s offers regular, scallion, a pungent garlic-herb, hot pepper, vegan cashew and “sweet — almost frosting,” and add-ons range from sprouts and smoked gouda to hot pastrami and hot honey. The shop also serves Ironclad Coffee Roasters brews and housemade sodas such as Autumn Creme, a cream soda with pumpkin spice and whipped cream. In addition, they have breakfast meals, a kids’ menu and catering options (full- and half-dozen bagel orders are dubbed Office Hero).
Professionally, Rudzinskas has lived a few lives already, but bagels and feeding others have always had a special place in his heart.
“I’m Lithuanian, too, and if you know much about Eastern Europe, like, if you really want to tug at someone’s heartstrings with a gift, you bring them a loaf of bread,” he says. “Lithuania is also the likely birthplace of the bagel; it was almost certainly developed first inside what was called the Lithuanian-Polish Commonwealth.”
Growing up in Sonoma, California, Rudzinskas worked at a restaurant started by his father. After attending culinary school in New York, he landed in Michelin-starred establishments La Bernardin and Eleven Madison Park, eventually leaving fine dining to become an investment banker and tech executive.
Now, he’s reentering the field in a much more casual way. While he’s been mixing dough and dedicating himself to crafting a recipe since the onset of the pandemic, his adoration for bagels has always been there. “Bagels are my favorite thing,” Rudzinskas says, recalling with reverence his first time eating bagels at New York City institution Zabar’s at 12 years old. “[In] the realm of perfect foods, you have the caprese, the peanut butter and jelly, really great pizza, yeah, and you have the bagel.”
For the remainder of the week, soft-opening hours for Baltik’s Bagel are Tuesday 7 to 9:30 a.m., Wednesday 7 to 10:30 a.m., Thursday 6:30 to 10:30 a.m., Friday 6:30 to 11:30 a.m. and Saturday 6:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Regular hours will be Monday through Saturday 6:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.
