Outside view into The Lox Bagel Shop at 722 N. High St. Credit: Cassandra D’Angelo | Sports Photo Editor.
In New York and New Jersey, bagel shops are as common as coffee shops. Kevin Crowley said he wants Columbus to be part of that culture.
Crowley, the owner of The Lox Bagel Shop, opened the restaurant in 2018 at 772 N. High St. after seeing an opportunity to bring the bagel culture he knew from the East Coast to central Ohio. As The Lox prepares to open its second location at Polaris later this fall, Crowley said he hopes the expansion will contribute to Columbus’ bagel scene.
“I don’t look at other bagel shops as competition,” Crowley said. “What I’m striving for is a community that acts the same as the New York-New Jersey crowd, where there’s a shop in every neighborhood, on every corner.”
Rather than trying to recreate a New York-style bagel, Crowley said The Lox developed its own style by combining elements of New York and Montreal bagels.
“Montreal cooks them in a live wood fire, so it gives it a bit more texture on the crunch [and] a punchier flavor than your traditional New York bagel, which is kind of the same ingredients we use, but we mix in the live fire element to our baking as well as a malt syrup in the boil kettle,” Crowley said. “We get the exterior texture of the Montreal bagel but we’re keeping the softness [of the] inside of the New York bagel.”
An herb and sea salt bagel and mint lemonade from The Lox Bagel Shop. Credit: Cassandra D’Angelo | Sports Photo Editor.
Crowley said the combination of both styles creates what he considers the perfect base for a sandwich.
“At the heart of what we do, we are almost more of a sandwich shop than a bagel shop,” Crowley said. “That’s how we look at ourselves. We are a sandwich shop that makes the bread in house every single day — the bread being the bagel.”
Crowley’s background in higher-end restaurants also shaped his decision to open The Lox. After getting married and having children, he said he wanted to move away from the demanding hours of fine-dining and be more present at home.
He and his wife traveled to various parts of the country while developing the concept.
“My wife and I traveled a bunch to New York and New Jersey [and] out west, eating a lot of bagels, and saw a gap in the market in Columbus, so we started working on the concept as well as the product in early 2017,” Crowley said. “In 2018, we took the leap and I left my job and started grinding it out.”
Crowley said his background in hospitality has helped distinguish The Lox from other shops.
“A combination of hospitality, great sourcing of ingredients, high-end technique, doing it for eight years and being proud and good at getting food out as fast as we can and high volume is our differentiator,” Crowley said.
The Lox’s approach to bagels has made it a popular spot among Ohio State students, including students from the Northeast who come to Columbus accustomed to a different bagel culture, Crowley said.
Crowley said students who are from New York, New Jersey and Maryland are particularly noticeable, making their expectations clear when they walk through the door.
“You can always tell an east-coaster by the way their order is or how they approach a bagel,” Crowley said. “There is always some skepticism, they’ll let it be known and say ‘Hey, I grew up in New York’ or ‘I’m from Jersey.’”
Gigi Ramsey, a third-year MBA student and Ohio State graduate who has worked at The Lox since it opened in 2018, said she has seen similar reactions from East Coast students.
“[They] are like ‘I’m from New York, I don’t know if I’m going to like this,’” Ramsey said. “But then they have them and on their way out they are like ‘That was amazing,’ so it’s fun to see.”
Ramsey said The Lox’s consistency and focus on making its food in-house are a big part of what keeps customers coming back.
“Since we are a smaller business, it has a different feel,” Ramsey said. “Everything is homemade, from all of our sauces to all of our bagels, baked fresh every day throughout the day.”
To avoid long lines on the weekend, Ramsey recommends ordering for pick-up through the shop’s website.
The Lox offers four bagel styles and focuses on sandwiches, allowing its staff to execute orders quickly, Crowley said. Its bacon, egg and cheese combination is its most popular order, while its salt and herb bagel is its most popular bagel.
Ramsey said the relationships between the restaurant’s employees and customers have also contributed to The Lox’s longevity.
“The people who come in every day, it’s awesome to see people wanting to come back, building those relationships,” Ramsey said. “On the weekend, it can be busy, so people might not know that we have a lot of regulars that come in and hang out during weekdays.”
Crowley said seeing returning customers is one of the most rewarding parts of running The Lox.
“The best thing that we can do is see you come back the next day or the next month or whenever you are next in town,” Crowley said.
He said that is especially meaningful when students return throughout their college careers.
“It’s fun to see the seniors bringing freshmen here and continuing that legacy, and now we’ve seen groups of classes come through Ohio State and gotten to know a lot of the kids,” Crowley said. “We’ll keep providing bagels and you just keep showing up.”
As an Ohio State graduate, Crowley said he values The Lox’s connection to the university community and will continue to support students during their time at the school.
“I have my graduate degree from Ohio State, been a longtime fan, grew up in Cincinnati, but came to Columbus often as a kid because my dad went here, my sister went here, we are a proud member of the community,” Crowley said. “We love supporting Ohio State wherever we can.”
The Lox has also become part of Columbus’ growing bagel community, where Ramsey said different shops offer different things.
“Every shop is so different in how they do things, it seems each one has their own niche or their own flair, so it is fun being in the bagel community,” Ramsey said. “The more the merrier for sure.”
As The Lox prepares to open its new location, Crowley said he hopes to see more bagel shops opening in Columbus and views it as a sign that the city is developing the culture he envisioned when he opened The Lox.
“If we can collectively push the bagel culture in Columbus, there could be a hundred shops and it be totally fine because that means we are infiltrating Columbus and beyond to teach them that bagels are awesome,” Crowley said.
