Almost a year into its brick and mortar bagel shop in Horwood’s Mall, Whitehorse’s own bit of bagel bliss is going strong. The smell of boiling and baking bagels is immediate when you step into Horwood’s Mall. Co-owners and operators, Adrian Burrill and Alena Puskas, make bagels with their team (Hannah Warrington, Brent Gallant and Ben Puskas) from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. from Tuesday to Saturday.
Since beginning this bagel journey four years ago, Bullet Hole Bagels has grown at a remarkable rate. While still stocking local grocery stores (Wyke’s Your Independent Grocer and Save-On-Foods), the bagel dream team also stocks many local restaurants and cafes. The Bullet Hole storefront offers bagels individually, or by the dozen and half-dozen. You can take them home, or have tasty sandwiches toasted and built on a variety of bagels including sesame seed, poppy seed, everything, plain, rosemary sea salt and cinnamon raisin. (the latter is only available after 2 p.m.)
The team also makes an in-house herb and garlic cream cheese (an unsung hero, it’s lovely and packed with dill) and offers four different sandwiches as part of the core menu, in addition to a changing weekly special that often uses local ingredients.
The rotating weekly special is always a delightful combination of both quirky and delicious ingredients. Past offerings have included the Lady Marmalade, with house-made marmalade, baked prosciutto crisps, and Ile-aux-Gru aged cheddar (supplied by Bullet Hole’s neighbor, Cultured Fine Cheese) and the Rick Reuben, made with locally smoked meat from Stacey’s Butcher Block, Emmental Swiss cheese from Cultured, house-made sauerkraut and Dijon aioli.
According to Burrill, Bullet Hole isn’t looking to expand to multiple locations any time soon. For right now, he’s happy keeping up with retailers and supplying Whitehorse with fresh bagels and unconventional sandwiches for the foreseeable future.
