The Bagel Oven in Red Bank ended a 45-year run under its founding owners Sunday.
Dean Ross and Brittany Grob at the Bagel Oven counter on Sunday. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
The tiny shop, at 72 Monmouth Street, has been sold, and will be renovated by the new owner, said co-founder Dean Ross.
The shop’s buyer was not present and could not be immediately reached for comment.
Ross and partner Frank Grob started the business in 1978, making the Bagel Oven only the fourth bagel shop in Monmouth County, Ross said.
Over the years, customers have included Kevin Smith, Max Weinberg, Geraldo Rivera, Roger Penske and “hundreds and hundreds of friends,” said Ross.
Some, dearly departed, had their affinity for Bagel Oven bagels mentioned in obituaries, now yellowed and taped to a wall near the coffee pot.
Another customer with Ross connected was a woman who would wash her clothes in a laundromat across the street and stop in for bagels. He and Sharyn have now been married for 43 years.
A 72-year-old retiree, Ross stopped working at Bagel Oven in 2000, when he launched the Doc Shoppe shoe store, which closed in 2014. He remains a partner in the Hole In One, a bagel shop in Neptune, and devotes most of his time to charitable endeavors: including a twice-yearly bicycle light giveaway in Red Bank (the next one is June 11).
Grob, meantime, continued to run the Bagel Oven, eventually joined by his daughter, Brittany.
Now 36 and expecting her first child, Brittany told redbankgreen said she’d been working at the shop since she was 10.
“I’ll tell my daughter, ‘you were there, too – in utero,'” she said.
Grob said the hot, demanding work of managing boiling kettles and 500-degree ovens, in a century-old storefront that lacks air conditioning, has taken its toll on her father, who was not present Sunday.
“I hate to say it’s bittersweet, but it’s been a long time that my father just needed to retire,” she said. “This is not an old person’s job. One-hundred-and-fifteen degree heat in the summer – I’ve almost fainted a few times. It’s intense. So I’m happy that my dad’s retiring.”
“We’ve had a long run,” said Ross. “It’s all good.”
Grob said she has committed to help the new owner with the transition through Labor Day. He intends to renovate the space and resume bagelmaking using the Bagel Oven’s techniques, she said.
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