Nick Zeller, right, and Yoel Sherwood roll the dough July 23 for Sebagel bagels at Poland Provisions on Route 26 in Poland. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal

POLAND — The mighty bagel, which has its roots in the Jewish community in the country of Poland, is being made by a budding entrepreneur and a small team in this Maine town.

Unless you are a regular customer at Poland Provisions on Route 26 or one of the pop-up events put on by Nick Zeller, you’ve probably never heard of Sebagels — yet.

Everything bagels are the most popular of all the flavors of Sebagels made in Poland by baker Nick Zeller. Maximilian Armstrong photo

The Sebagel name was coined by happenstance when Zeller’s wife, Zile, saw signs for Sebago Lake State Park. New to the area, she mispronounced it as Sebah-goh, Zeller said. “No, it’s Sebago, like bagel,” he told her. “And then a little light bulb went off,” he said, and the Sebagel name was penned.

Zeller graduated from Colby College in Waterville, where he studied government and has worked desk jobs ever since. He and his then girlfriend moved to Lewiston, then Poland during the COVID-19 pandemic. “At the end of 2022, I was just like ready to do something with my hands,” Zeller said.

“I got a job tending bar at Oxbow Beer Garden … and rolling bagels at Forage in Portland” under the watchful eyes of owner Allen Smith. “I started working there because I like their bagels — I like bagels, period. And I just wanted to see if I liked it. I had no designs on doing this.”

At 34, Zeller had an epiphany of sorts.

“I was shocked at how I liked waking up early,” he said. “I loved working that beautiful Spanish bread oven. And I just like learned a lot,” he said of his job at Forage, working with Smith, who opened the original Forage on Lisbon Street in Lewiston.

The 3 a.m. commute to fire up the Spanish wood-fired oven in Portland, however, led Zeller to look for a shorter commute after less than a year, right about the time Poland Provisions was getting ready to open last year. Owner Sheila Foley hired Zeller as a barista and a conversation one day led to bagels.

“I was like, you know, I really think that there’s a pop-up bagel thing that could work in this area,” Zeller told his boss.

Her response?

“She did not skip a beat and just said, ‘why don’t you just do it in the back of the kitchen?'”

Over the next few months Zeller refined his recipes and methods at his home kitchen then took it to the kitchen at Poland Provisions and Sebagel bagels was truly born, cutting a deal with Foley to rent space and then wholesale his bagels to Poland Provisions, which rolled them out to customers earlier this year.

Yoel Sherwood works with the dough July 23 while making Sebagel bagels. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal

HOW THEY MAKE BAGELS IN POLAND

“We mix our bagels in small batches and then hand roll each bagel before cold proofing them for at least 18 hours. Then they are boiled in water and barley malt before getting baked at high heat, giving them a slight crunch on the outside and an airy-yet-chewy inside,” Zeller said of his method.

Bread science is not all encompassing for Zeller, he’s the type of artisan baker who “tweaks” flavors and his recipes, and said he’s pretty proud of his bagels and based on how quickly they sell out, customers like them, too.

Zeller said he makes about seven different flavors, depending on the day. How he chooses them has been a trial and error process.

Nick Zeller prepares Sebagel bagels to be boiled and baked July 23 at Poland Provisions on Route 26 in Poland. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal

“It’s really what folks at Poland Provisions are buying and what they’re willing to try,” he explained. “I had a za’atar bagel that I thought was awesome,” but it didn’t fly.

Za’atar is a blend of herbs such as thyme, oregano, marjoram along with other spices, including sesame, sumac, cumin or coriander.

“I do a chipotle pepper jack that people have really liked … that was kind of surprising,” Zeller said. Other flavors include plain, everything, asiago, sea salt, rosemary sea salt and cinnamon French toast.

He also mixes up his own cream cheese flavors.

“I do a chili crisp cream cheese,” which he explained as chilis in oil with crunchy soybeans — a Chinese condiment. “It’s almost like a pimento cheese, beer cheese flavor. It’s crunchy. It’s amazing on a cheese bagel,” Zeller proclaimed.

Following the lead of Sheila Foley at Poland Provisions, Zeller is trying to incorporate locally sourced products where possible. He’s using honey from In-Between Farm in Poland and salt from York, and he is on the lookout for other local ingredients.

Yoel Sherwood dons his Sebagel hat while making bagels last month at Poland Provisions. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal

Foley said the first time Zeller made his bagels, she realized how much she missed having a “proper” bagel. “It’s the perfect amount of crunchy outside, soft and properly chewy on the inside,” she said. Customers come from all over the area for Sebagels she said, many describing them as New York-style bagels.

When he first started making bagels for Poland Provisions, Zeller said he would bake about 30-40 a day. That number has skyrocketed to 600-700 a week. But that’s just what he sells to the cafe and general store. Double that number when you factor in the bagels he’s now producing for pop-up events.

BEYOND WHOLESALE, INTRODUCING THE POP-UP BAGEL EVENT

Wholesaling bagels has been “the bread and butter of this business” to this point and allowed him to hire help to boost production. One helps him roll the dough, two others help with the early morning baking — between 3 and 4 a.m. — and three other people help him with pop-up events.

To grow his business, Zeller knows he needs to expose more people to his product.

“How do I get bagels into more people’s hands?” he asked. “One way to do that is just go out there into the wilderness and see if people will come and eat my bagels and pay for them.”

He pitched the idea of a pop-up bagel event to Oxbow — set up a table before the taproom opened and posted the event to Instagram. They came — and bought 100 bagels.

He repeated the pop-up at Norway Brewing Co., which was looking to bring people in during the first hour of business on the weekend. He convinced Blue Jay Coffee in Lewiston and a few others to do the same thing to build a following and name recognition.

After about 10 of these events, Zeller made a decision. “What I need to do in the summer is just have like one spot where people know they can find something. That’s how you build a brand that’s going to last.”

Customers line up just after 8 a.m. July 27 in front of Lakeside Dairy Bar on the causeway in Naples to purchase Sebagels at a pop-up event. Maximilian Armstrong photo

He chose the causeway in Naples because of the seasonal foot traffic and proximity to Sebago Lake. “I literally walked around the causeway with bags of bagels, and I wandered into random businesses that I thought might be willing to work with me and I gave them some bagels,” he said.

He repeated the tactic with people on the causeway and ran out of 150 bagels in 45 minutes. He came back the following week with bagels to sell and sold out 150 bagels in 30 minutes.

Zeller worked out a deal with the owners of Lakeside Dairy Bar where he does his pop-up out front of the business before they open at noon. He’s selling 750 bagels and schmear a weekend.

THE FUTURE OF SEBAGELS AND SCHMEAR

“I’m trying not to get too ahead of myself,” Zeller said. “I want to be very deliberate … I want to be sustainable,” he said calmly as he talked about what comes next. “I could see a world in which next summer I’m doing maybe something similar with the pop-ups, but maybe I’ll do two of them. I could see a world in which we decided to do a brick-and-mortar, but not a storefront.”

Sitting at a table in Poland Provisions, Zeller reflected on his very quick rise to bagel fame, with a pinch of humility. “Without this place, Sebagel would not be a thing. I’m just very grateful for Sheila (Foley) and what she’s allowed me to do.”

Foley is clearly quite happy with the arrangement, offering high praise for Zeller and his product. “We feel incredibly fortunate to carry his incredible product and we are fully aware that a lot of our success is related to his bagels! Watching him grow has been such a pleasure and we know Sebagel will continue to grow in their success.”

At $3 a bagel, Zeller could command a higher price, but offered his thoughts on the subject.

“One thing I love about bagels is that I feel like it is a great food that pretty much anybody can get at $3 a bagel, he said. “I like to think that most folks can afford that breakfast.”

Sebagels frequently sell out at Poland Provisions, but people can preorder them online.