The story of Ray's goes something like this...
Ray's New York Bagels is operated by a guy named Ray. It all started one day when Ray was walking his dog on his street in the summer of 1999, and he realized that the Boston bagel market was an area of opportunity.
Discussion after discussion revealed the fact that a bagel made in New York had distinct qualities that could not be replicated elsewhere. After a little research he realized that this phenomenon could be attributed to New York water. Ray thought about shipping the water up to a manufacturing facility in MA, but clearly that would be cost prohibitive. What to do next? He did not want to have just a New York Style bagel; he wanted a real New York bagel made with real New York water. He couldn't ship the bagel up to Boston fresh because it wouldn't be truly fresh by the time it got to Boston. The only way was frozen, but he didn't want people to just re-heat a fully cooked bagel. He wanted his customers to have that "just out of the oven" bagel shop taste, flavor, and texture.
Then he came up with the idea - just cooking the bagel part of the way - called par-baked. He was concerned with the amount of time it would take consumers to finish baking the bagels. But he realized if he par-baked the bagel 95% of the way and consumers cooked the last 5 minutes, the bagel would be perfect, like buying a bagel hot from the oven of a New York bagel shop. Ray's New York Bagels was born. Bagels that are delicious, crunchy on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside, every time, just like a bagel should be!
Ray developed a brand name, package and website. Fortunately, he had gotten a bit of professional help with the packaging and website!
It quickly became apparent to Ray that people appreciate a real New York bagel everywhere - not just Boston! Ray's New York Bagels are distributed in more than 2,500 supermarkets throughout fourteen states along the east coast with expansion plans to market their bagels throughout all of the U.S., including California.
