The Bagel Blog

Ottawa bagel institution dedicates day to Jacob Gauthier and organizes fundraiser and donation to the Ottawa Candlelighters

Ottawa/August 10th, 2017 – The 24 hour a day operation that is Kettleman’s Bagel Co was briefly brought to a pause, emotionally at least, with a heartfelt message received from a local mother at the beginning of August. Carolyn Gauthier’s son Jacob was diagnosed with muscular cancer in mid 2016 and had recently celebrated one full year since his last chemo treatment. She reached out to the popular business with a moving story.

“Throughout treatment, as it happens to some, the taste of certain foods did not agree with him. Your plain bagels, though not always able to finish one in a day, and your karnatzel meat sticks were his main stays. Even now a year later, with all clear MRIs and X-rays, bagels and karnatzels are a great treat. So without knowing it, you helped my son through a very difficult time”, said Mrs Gauthier. Read more

Sorry…what!?

That’s exactly what Ottawa’s Mayor, Jim Watson, did yesterday when he bet New York mayor Bill De Blasio about who was going to win the upcoming playoff series between the Ottawa Senators and the New York Rangers. The Ottawa Citizen reported on the friendly and customary bet between these municipal politicians, yesterday. As per the mayor himself….

Should the Senators prevail in the best-of-seven series, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio will wear a Senators jersey, send a whack of bagels up north and plant a maple tree somewhere in Gotham.

If the Rangers win, Watson will send Golden Palace egg rolls to New York City, wear a Rangers jersey and plant a native New York tree somewhere in the city.

So..couple of things to just get out there. We love Golden Palace egg rolls. They’re a great business and they have the best egg rolls in the city, in our opinion. They’re also very popularly served at the Canadian Tire Centre during hockey games. Read more

Facebook has firmly established itself as an important marketing platform for business. We’ve been using it as an important part of our efforts for several years. Worldwide, there are over 1.86 billion monthly active Facebook users (Facebook MAUs) which is a 17 percent increase year over year.  That’s kind of crazy.

This weekend….

This weekend, we hit an important milestone for Kettleman’s on the social network that Mark Zuckerberg built. We hit 30,000 likes and follows!

We didn’t want to hit this mark without providing some interesting stats about who makes up this group, so we created this infographic to give you a glimpse into what makes up this number of bagel lovers and fans of the Montreal style approach to making them.

The breakdown…

First – overwhelmingly – more women like and follow Kettleman’s Bagel Co. on Facebook than men. 64% of our likes and follows come from women compared to 34% of men. Way back in 2010, Forbes pointed out an interesting trend. Read more

We Have A Nifty New App, Rewards, and Gift Cards!

We recently celebrated being open for a month at our new College Square location, and with it, came the first 30 days of customers using our brand spankin’ new app, courtesy of Spoonity, for both iOS and Android.

As a cash only business for a long period of time, we knew that we needed to provide alternative methods of payments in our stores in a world where the immediate ability to do almost everything from your phone is now the norm. That’s not all, though. Besides the app, we also have new gift cards and a new rewards program that we’ve rolled out. We’re also offering tap enabled debit in both of our stores as well. You can use your regular debit cards in our stores, and if you’ve set them up with Apple Pay or Android Pay, we can take that too. In summary, you can now pay 4 different ways in our stores. Read more

Ottawa. The capital of Canada and quick food made with premium ingredients. 

The city is sometimes referred to as a sleepy town of government bureaucrats, chain restaurants, and shopping malls that are spanned from one end of the city to the next. We’re known for Parliament hill, the House of Commons, and the Ottawa Senators. The 613 area code evokes the taste of Beavertails for many. However, in the last 10 years, Ottawa has also become a recognized and highly respected fast casual food destination, and frankly, we deserve it. You might be asking yourself what “fast casual” food is. It’s where you can enjoy the speediness of fast-food with the quality of a fine restaurant. For a city of a little over a million people, we bring in almost a million tourists every year, hungry for the wealth of world class museums, shopping, and landmarks that we offer. We think it’s time the fast casual food scene in this city gets its due. Read more

2015 and 2016 have been years of growth and transition for us.

For more than 20 years, our original Bank street store remained open almost constantly, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all year long. In that amount of time, we’ve baked and served millions (literally) of bagels. Last year, we started the process of renovating our flagship location in the Glebe. This was a long overdue update on not only our store, but our brand. We want to provide one of the best, if not the best, casual dining experience you will find, with a product and menu that is unparalleled. Not many businesses see the kind of traffic that we do on a daily basis. We’ve been extremely fortunate in the support we’ve received from the community, and it’s that very support that motivated us to give Kettleman’s a fresh reset and look beyond the Glebe. Read more

We’d like to sincerely thank our customers for their honest feedback regarding our logo contest that was launched a few weeks back. We were positively overwhelmed by your enthusiastic and observant responses, and swiftly reminded of how incredible our customers are!

The overall reaction was that the logos we presented were not representative of who we are and what we mean to the community. With careful consideration to these reactions and reasoning, we fully agree with you!

We’ve decided to regroup with the team to create something better suited to our brand with all your input in mind.

We feel very privileged to have such a loyal group of customers, who not only visit us regularly, but also offer their insights and opinions on our initiatives, and motivate us to work harder.

Thanks, The Kettleman’s Bagel Co Family

We’d also like to announce the winner of the six dozen bagels is Jennifer Comacchio, who in her submission said, “I really enjoy the no-wall policy that is unique to your customer experience. Read more

The most exhilarating aspect of Halloween, is the anticipation that something scary is going to happen. That’s what makes trick or treating fun, haunted walks fun, and most of all, Halloween parties. As you began planning the Halloween party that you would be hosting this year, were you feeling a bit stumped? Coming up with ways to keep your guests guessing where the next scare will come from, can be tricky.

The team at Kettleman’s Bagel Co. has a few brilliant ideas for keeping your guests on their toes, and keeping the excitement levels high during this year’s Halloween party. Read more

Upon deciding that you will be the host of a party or a gathering of people, there are a few things to really keep in mind as you plan all of the ins and outs of your event. What will the theme be? How many guests will I invite? And most importantly, what will we do for food? As the plans begin to come together, one thing you will most certainly notice is the fact that you are going to be pretty busy on the day of your event. You will have to decorate, entertain, keep an eye on things, everything pretty much falls on your shoulders, and aside from asking your friends for a little help, there isn’t much you can do about it.

However, when it comes to the food, there is always something you can do to make the task a little easier to manage. Hire a caterer. Read more

Halloween is a holiday celebrated in many places around the world. Some have haunted hikes, some have trick or treating, some even have theme parks that aim to scare the socks off of anyone who enters, but no one does Halloween exactly like Ottawa, Canada. If you’re considering visiting Ottawa the month of October, we have some advice on a few things you and your family MUST do! This is sure to be your best trip to Ottawa yet. With activities for adults, children, families and friends, there is something for everyone to take part in during Halloween in Ottawa. Read more