In March 2020, our full Covid lockdown began. Restaurants were closed, families were isolated in their homes and – to make matters worse – there wasn’t a good bagel to be found anywhere.

To offer comfort and create community, Janet Blake opened Comfort Bagel in September as a cottage bakery offering contact-free delivery of freshly-baked bagels, four days a week.

Word spread quickly to Westfield, Agawam, West Springfield, Holyoke, Springfield and Longmeadow and soon Comfort Bagels were selling out up to a month in advance.

With increasing demand, the limitations of operating out of a residential kitchen and the easing of Covid restrictions, it soon became apparent that it was time to expand.

In July 2021, Comfort Bagel opened it’s doors at Open Square in Holyoke, MA and instantly became a destination for bagel lovers from Western Massachusetts and beyond.