Boichik Will Unveil Its New Mega-Plant — Complete with a Robot Bagel Maker — On Friday

Emily Winston’s bagel-making robots are ready to roll: The 18,000-square-foot facility meant to serve as the backbone of Boichik Bagels' march toward Bay Area bagel domination will open bright and early at 7:30 a.m. on Friday, March 24.

The new production facility at 1225 Sixth Street in Berkeley has been at least a year and a half in the making. After announcing the new space back in September 2021, Winston has not only been busy opening new locations of Boichik Bagels around the Bay, but also overseeing the building of the facility and the creation of the robot at the center of bagel production — oh, and on top of it all, crowdfunding over $1 million on SMBX to help get the project off the ground.

The menu at the Sixth Street retail shop and production facility will be extremely familiar to Boichik Bagels fans, Winston says, from the bagels to the cream cheese to coffee offerings and bagel sandwiches. And while there aren’t any items that’ll be special to the Sixth Street bagel plant just yet (Winston has no plans in place for them either but hasn’t quite ruled out the possibility), Winston does have a few more food secrets up her sleeves.

Now that she has the space to make more food, she’s finally bringing back the pastry program that was initially launched with the bagel shop. The first on the list of items to return: Winston’s black and white cookies, along with rugelach, challah, and a triple chocolate chip loaf cake, Winston’s ode to Entenmann’s chocolate chip crumb loaf cake. “This is the adult foodie version of that cake,” Winston says. “It’s so good.” Winston hopes to relaunch the pastries as early as next week, with the plan being for those to be made at Sixth Street and rolled out to her shops across the Bay Area from there. “What happened was we got so popular and the demand was so high, that we just had no room to do pastry anymore,” Winston says. “We had to let it go because we had to make more bagels. So it’s exciting to have the space to be able to bring that back.”

Those hoping for a glimpse at the dough production line in action are in luck. Winston says the facility will have an excellent vantage point from which to watch the bagel magic happen. “The main thing is that I designed the whole place around the showpiece, which is the heart of the plant, the dough line, which has been like my new baby,” Winston says. “It’s super awesome, it’s really fun to watch — it’s quite mesmerizing.” A window sitting front and center to the dough line will allow visitors to see how everything’s made.

Also included in the new facility are cafe tables for visitors to sit inside or outdoors on the patio. With those new spaces, Winston says she’s hoping to host events such as mahjong, bridge, and chess clubs to play alongside some coffee and bagels. Winston says signage will soon go up, as well as a new mural on the outside of the building, painted by local artist Nigel Sussman.

Boichik Bagels (1225 Sixth Street, Berkeley) will debut Friday, March 24, from 7:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. (or until sold out) and will be open 7:30 a.m to 1 p.m. seven days a week.