“I can recognize when something is made with love, and when it is not made with love. I can just tell. Honestly, I make my bagels with love.””

Rob Browne

Thousands of businesses have come and gone through the small storefronts of downtown Bristol. Many have flamed brightly and died quickly. Others took hold, endured for a years, then passed into memory. Just a handful have ever reached the status of icon, landmark, anchor business.

Bristol Bagel Works is one of them.

The small, family-owned restaurant near the corner of Hope and Court streets opened its doors more than 30 years ago, and it has remained open nearly every day since, for three eventful decades.

Family-owned, now in its second generation, “the bagel shop,” as many refer to it, is a restaurant, a coffee shop, a caterer, a gathering place, and an old friend. It serves out-of-town visitors by the thousands, and everyday regulars who meet and shoot the breeze like clockwork daily or weekly. With its heavy wooden door, historic edifice and familiar decor, it is one of a kind, and the only bagel shop in town — at least, in this town. And that is part of the story of how downtown Bristol became home to a landmark bagel business.

Bagels were good business

It started back in 1994, when Herb Browne was getting ready to retire from a career in the beer business. Browne was a sales manager for a large distributor, ready for retirement but not for sitting still.

He was good friends with a Barrington man named Tim Gorman who had recently opened a new bagel shop in that town, called Bagels Etc. Gorman and Browne would often meet for a beer after work at the Wharf Tavern in Warren, and Gorman talked about how great the new bagel business was doing. Gorman told his friend that he was setting up the business for his son to eventually take over [which is exactly what happened; the younger Tim Gorman still runs Bagels Etc. today].

Herb Browne liked the idea of opening a bagel shop, but even though the family was living in Bristol at the time, he and his wife, Christine, never considered their hometown a suitable location for a new bagel business. Instead, Browne searched the entire state, with the assistance of a woman representing the same bagel equipment manufacturer who had helped Gorman in Barrington.

As Browne got serious about launching a new bagel venture, he and the woman, a New Jersey resident, met in Bristol and began a comprehensive search for a location. In one day, they circled the entire state, counterclockwise, traveling through Bristol County, Providence, the West Bay, Wickford, South County, Newport, Portsmouth and finally back to the Mt. Hope Bridge.

“As they were coming over the bridge, she had no idea where she was, and she asked, ‘What is this bridge, and is this a college?’ As they were driving into town, she told my Dad, ‘To have a successful bagel business, you need a bus stop, you need a college, and you really need to be in a walkable downtown.’

“So after this all-day excursion, suddenly all the boxes got checked, and the perfect location was Bristol. It was one of those magic moments.”
In short order, the Brownes settled on their current location, right in the heart of the downtown district, a stone’s throw from the Town Hall and perched a few steps above the famous Fourth of July parade route. Herb and Christine and their son Rob together opened The Bristol Bagel Works.

A different downtown

Downtown Bristol was a very different place back in 1994. Today there are dozens of restaurants, many of them upscale, serving food of all varieties, cultures and ethnicities. Back then, there were just a handful of eateries, some diners and pizza shops, and a couple of bars. Quito’s was open in the summer, and on the outskirts of the downtown district were legendary restaurants The Lobster Pot, SS Dion and Tweet’s.
One of the first newcomers to make a name for itself in downtown Bristol was a hip restaurant called Redlefsen’s, which opened on the ground floor of what was then the Harriet Bradford Inn. The visionary owners drew a huge crowd downtown and helped change the dining scene in the area. So did a cozy pub around the corner on John Street. Herb Browne was a big fan of the late Aidan Graham and his beloved Aidan’s Pub.

“My Dad loved watching how Aidan ran his business,” Rob Browne said. “Even though he was not a professional restauranteur, Aidan had a special way of running his business. For one thing, he was always there. And that’s one of the things my Dad told me and one of the things that became a basis for our business – ‘There’s always going to be a Browne here.’ ”

That mantra became a building block of Bristol Bagel’s success, and a personal burden as well. Rob is used to missing kids’ playoff games, weddings, birthday parties and funerals.

“If it’s happening on a Saturday morning and it’s 10 a.m., I’m here,” he said, while gesturing to the shop’s kitchen. “I mean, we have had really great staff here, but I just can’t leave this place. It’s just how I’m wired. After 30 years, I breathe and live it.”

Browne admitted there have been tough times and stressful moments running a small business with family. Has he thrown up his hands and walked out, saying he was done? Yes. Did his mother and father at times? Yes, they did, too.

“But those were just moments,” Rob said. “We all loved each other, and we all knew we had to rely on each other to make this place run correctly. I had to lean on my parents, and they had to lean on me.”
The elder Browne established relationships with his customers that went far deeper than a bagel or a hot coffee. “My Dad cared so deeply about customers,” Rob said. “Someone would come in to talk to my Dad about something, and my Dad would spend two hours with him.”
Browne said he was a little naive and maybe immature as a young adult in his early twenties, and he got emotional when talking about some of the life lessons learned from his parents. “I saw how hard an older gentleman and lady worked, how they interacted with people, who weren’t customers after a while, they became friends. I learned so much from them about life, and about running a business.”

Along came Covid

When the 2020 pandemic arrived and walloped the hospitality industry, Bristol Bagel suffered the consequences like everyone else, but not at first. “I remember we were one of the last restaurants still open. I think it was us and Bristol House of Pizza. And we were watching each restaurant close and I’d say, ‘Dad, you know, so-and-so closed today, but Dad wasn’t getting it. He just kept running his business.”

So finally one day Rob went into the back and confronted his father, telling him the staff was getting nervous and they had to shut it down. Herb agreed, and the shop closed its doors. But Rob kept baking.
“I was baking off my inventory back here. Just baking and crying. I was making food and giving it away. I would just put it at the front door,” Rob said. “I set up a table and a couple chairs, and I just put dozens of bagels out for free. And somebody would come by and wave. I’d wave back, and then come back here and cry.”

Of course Bristol Bagel re-opened eventually, and the Brownes got back to work. Herb, despite health problems and advancing age, was devoted to the end. At age 92, a week and a half before he died in July of 2023, the elder Browne was still working in the shop he had opened 29 years earlier as a retirement project.

Made with love

Legend has it that the best bagels come from New York, but Rob Browne doesn’t necessarily agree. He said the best bagels come from love.

“I can go to a pizza place, or a bagel shop, and I can recognize when something is made with love, and when it is not made with love. I can just tell. Honestly, I make my bagels with love. I love my bagels. I love doing what I do. I mean, I eat one to two of my bagels every day.”

Bristol Bagel has its slow times and its busy times, and then it has the Fourth of July. Located at the heart of the parade route, its front door just feet from thousands of marchers and tens of thousands of visitors, the bagel shop is nearly crushed with business every parade day.

“It’s a marathon, and it’s usually horrific,” Browne said. He begins prepping for Bristol’s big day four days in advance, making so many bagels that he pushes himself to exhaustion. Four times over the years, he reached such levels of dehydration or exhaustion that he needed a trip to the hospital to recover.

Browne said he’s learned from some of those mistakes and is working to adopt better health habits and better routines in his personal life. One of those improvements is actually taking a day off once a week.

For 28 years, the shop was open seven days a week, and almost every day of the year, holidays included. They were open on Christmas morning and Thanksgiving and New Year’s. “That was my Dad,” Browne said. “He was going to be open, whether the staff showed up or not, Herb Browne was going to be open. And the customers who came in were so thankful.”

Bristol Bagel Works is now closed on Mondays, giving Browne a chance to catch his breath and take a well-earned break.

The new front guy

These days, Browne faces new burdens that he never faced before. His father is gone and his mother, suffering from Alzheimers, is not able to help him anymore.

“My Dad was always the front guy, and I was always the back guy, making the bagels and the cream cheese and all that. Now it’s my responsibility to be the front guy as well,” Browne said.

“My Dad always told me, ‘Your customers want to talk to the owners. They want to be recognized by the owner.’ I fully understand that. When I go into a restaurant, it’s always nice to be like, ‘Hey there's the owner, and maybe you'll get lucky enough and the owner waves to you or something. Something that small can build familiarity and loyalty.”

Brown is proud of their 30-year legacy, their impact on the community and their staying power. He also feels blessed to be living and working in Bristol. “I love this town. I feel so fortunate to be able to walk down to the water, to be able to go sailing in the afternoon, to walk my dog along High Street … I feel so lucky. I tell my kids all the time how lucky they are to live in a place like this.” Browne and his wife, Kristine, have two sons. One is a student at Mass. Maritime Academy, and the other is a junior at Mt. Hope High School.

Browne not only works downtown, he lives downtown, and he feels tremendous pride in being part of a small town, woven into the fabric of a community.

“Without Bristol Bagel Works and Bristol House of Pizza, and all the local restaurants … without those, you become less of a place,” Browne said. “Without those, you’re not the same Bristol, Rhode Island anymore. You need these staples. You need the post office and the library and the bagel shop to have a real town, and we’re fortunate to have it all.”