Interview with John and Irene Portelli, 12-2-2009

BH: So how did the business get started?

Irene: I guess you can say it all started in 1982. That's when we decided we were going to make bagels and have a cafe. The idea was to make just enough bagels for our cafe and not to sell wholesale to anybody else. But of course we didn't have a recipe. We had visited my brother in San Francisco in the late 70's and he came to Australia and wanted to go into business together. So he went back to San Fransisco to get a recipe but of course no-one would give him one.

BH: So he went back to San Francisco just to get a recipe?

Irene: Just for a recipe. And no bakery would let him in. He came back with a home cookbook that had a bagel recipe in it. We tried to make them at home but it didn't work because the flour in Australia is so different to the flour in the States. I think in Australia it's much harder.

John: In Australia we did not have the conditioners and all the other crap that they put in the flour in the States. But even the water's different and we started the business to do the real thing.

Irene: So we tried making bagels from the recipe in that little book but it didn't work. Then I rang a lot of flour companies in Australia. I think I rang every flour company in New South Wales and no one knew anything. Then there was someone in Melbourne at one of the flour mills at the time. I spoke to a technician there who had actually helped someone make bagels before. So he and I basically worked on the recipe over the phone. I would try something out and ring him with whatever problems I came up with. Then by June 1983 we had come close to a recipe that was good enough to serve in our cafe.

BH: How did you know that it was the real thing?

John: We'd visited San Fransisco first with Irene's brother and that's where we picked up what a bagel is. Then her brother brought the idea to us to start a business together. But the interesting thing is the development of the recipe. That was Irene's instinct for cooking along with techincal advice from the guy at the flour mill. She would do the bake and at some stages we had dough literally pushing out of the oven with different types of tests. But it was Irene's instinct and the technician's expertise and with that information she was able to develop it to a stage where we could open a shop.

Irene: And of course with my brother having lived in San Francisco for so long he knew what a bagel should be like. And we had visited him and tasted them and so we knew as well. Then we opened in June 1983 on Taylor Square which was on the way to the airport. That gave us a lot of exposure with people who knew bagels, people who travelled.

BH: And there wouldn't have been that many back then?

Irene: That's right but before you knew it we had the executive chef of what was then the Regent Hotel and later changed to the ANA - the one at The Rocks. The Regent was the top hotel at the time. He approached us to make bagels for his hotel. He was our first wholesale customer.

John: 'Cause he was a regular customer too of the cafe on Taylor Square.

Irene: He used to come to the cafe on his days off and have our bagels. And it all just grew by word of mouth. We had to buy machinery and before you knew it we were supplying delis and cafes and hotels. It just took off and we kept increasing our range.

BH: But then when the wholesale operation took off you guys moved to Alexandria?

Irene: Before we moved to Alexandria we were on Taylor Square at number five then maybe five years later we moved to number seven. There we were making bagels downstairs and had the cafe upstairs.

John: We had a really steep staircase and Irene would mix the dough in the window of the shop downstairs, take it upstairs, form it by hand and bring it back down for the bakers.

Irene: In the very very early days I would make hand rolled bagels behind the counter then boil them - we had a boiler next to it - and a pizza oven that we used. That went on through the day so whenever customers came to have their coffee and bagel they could also see us making bagels. Then after moving to number seven and the wholesale business went wild we had to look for a bakery. That's when we bought a shop in Alexandria. It was just a shell that we built a bakery in. We were then supplying Coles and Franklins at the time in New South Wales and interstate.

BH: We recently opened a market stall in Leichhardt and many people see the name and fondly remember the cafe on Taylor Square. But the name of the original cafe was Bagel Coffee House. When did it change to simply 'Bagel House'?

John: It was called 'Bagel Coffee House' before it was 'Bagel House'. People thought we just sold coffee because they didn't know bagels. So it was a natural progression that we went to 'Bagel House' instead of 'Bagel Coffee House'.

Irene: Within a couple of years we were calling ourselves 'Bagel House' but on paper we were trading as 'Bagel Coffee House'. But then even that dropped and we went to just 'Bagel House'.

BH: What were some of the more interesting bagels you made?

Irene: We used to make beer bagels. We made a champagne bagel as well.

BH: How do you make a beer bagel?

John: With beer.

BH: Instead of water?

John: Mixed.

Irene: Not totally beer. But that was a very nice bagel.

John: The champagne bagel was something else too. That was such a fine bagel.

Irene: And we did a choc chip bagel.

John: But we used to have to some crazy stuff. For example we had the Reuben - some Americans used to want it on a sugared blueberry bagel!

BH: At our store in the MLC Centre there's a regular customer who has smoked salmon on a sugar blueberry bagel. I can't think of anything worse! I don't know, maybe there's something in it -

John (laughing): I'm missing it!

BH: Can you share with us a few special memories of the days on Taylor Square?

John: It was very big during Mardi Gras. Irene's brother Frank was mainly responsible for that. We changed the front window into different things that we'd do. Our most popular one was when we transformed the window into an aquarium. We had one of the staff there dressed as a mermaid - a topless mermaid on Taylor Square. It was fantastic!

Irene: We had a few people from the film industry who used to come in.

John: Nicole Kidman -

Irene: Nicole Kidman and Noah Taylor came in and I served them the date and walnut bagel. And the American girl who used to come with her mum –

John: Brooke Shields.

Irene: Brooke Shields used to come in. She was doing a film here so she used to come in and have her wholewheat bagel for breakfast in the mornings. They were also ordered when there was a supper or something for the Queen when she was out here.

John: And Rolf Harris. And Dame Edna - they used to play at Kinsela's. Barry Humphries used to come in when he had a show there.

BH: What, as Dame Edna?

John (laughing): No! Never. Although no-one would've cared at Taylor Square, I'm sure! God that's bringing back some memories! One time Frank Sinatra was here when he was having trouble with the unions and some of his heavies came in to get bagels for him. They wanted to have a look at the shop, see how we did it and that there was nothing funny about the bagels.

BH (to Irene): Can you describe a little about your brother's involvement? He sounds like an interesting fellow.

Irene: My brother certainly was and still is a very interesting character. He was responsible for the crazy-artistic stuff, like the window aquarium and the belly dancer on opening day. He was only with us for the first three years out of the 15 years we were in business but I think John and I both agree that they were probably the most interesting.

BH: But he was working full time?

Irene: Yeah, and it wasn’t just the fun part. He did the night shift. We were open from seven in the morning 'til three in the morning. There were lots of clubs around and we used to get the night trade there. And I think from memory Frank also did some of the cooking, deliveries and whatever had to be done. At that time we were both working very long hours.

John: There was a real buzz there.

Irene: There was. So I did the day shift and my brother did the night shift. John was working at the bank and then he'd come and give us a hand after work. But then my brother left us moved on after three years and John and I just carried on until 1997. That's where Issac came in.

BH: How did that work?

Irene: It was very different obviously.

John: It had reached the stage where we were getting so much business and we couldn't cope with it.

BH: Wholesale business?

John: Wholesale. Bagels were popular and if you couldn't service a wholesale customer they were going somewhere else. So we had to make a decision - either sell or do some kind of joint venture. We weren't ready to pull out of the business so that's when Issac's mob came in and we -

Irene: We were approached by three groups in the same week.

John: We had approaches before but they were way ahead of the others and we liked them the best. We liked them so much my daughter married him! [Issac] But they had the best, not necessarily money offer, but were the nicest I think to deal with and had done the most research about bagels. So we went with them.

BH: What happened with the business then?

John: Well then it became a number of shareholders which provided the capital. We stayed at Alexandria because we had already started the Alexandria factory and we just expanded the business. I was in charge of production, Irene was in charge of the office and admin, Issac was CEO and was out selling and we went from there.

Irene: By then we had bakers and dough makers and packers and drivers -

John: It was a factory operation. Which was what we had before at Alexandria but not to the same scale. When Issac came in the money came in and we had three ovens and took over the building next door.

BH: What happened to the cafe at Flinder's St?

John: Closed down.

Irene: I think it was about a year after 1997. I was in the cafe at the time and my daughter Ann worked there as well. Then we had to move to Alexandria to get that going although we already had Alexandria. I could manage Alexandria and be at the cafe at the same time but once we got bigger I had to be 100% in Alexandria which meant I wasn't in the cafe. And Ann wasn't in the cafe and without that you don't have a business. I think the business was built not just on the bagels but also on the personal contact.

John: That's it.

Irene: And there was no parking at Taylor Square and yet we had regulars that were coming there for years and years; they made the effort, you know. Once they don't see you behind the counter -

John: But the quality went down too.

BH: Of the food itself?

John: The food, the bake. We were doing a bake from Taylor Square still. And we had the wholesale bake from Alexandria and if you can't keep an eye on it - things just changed. It's such a simple process, it really doesn't take much.

Irene: But you know I'm not surprised what you say about people remembering the [Bagel House] name at the markets. Because for many years we used to have queues, on weekends especially. They'd be queueing all the way down the stairs waiting for a table. We used to do huge breakfasts, the big breakfast - the bacon, the eggs, the tomatoes... all of that.

BH: What was on the breakfast menu? Did you do the big breakfast with a bagel?

Irene: If you went with the big breakfast it would be bacon, sausages, eggs, tomatoes, baked beans and a bagel of your choice obviously. Or you could have just have bacon and avocado or sausages -

BH: And it was all plated up with the bagel on the side?

John: Always a bagel. Everything we did, there was always a bagel with it. But Irene also used to do cooking. Her chopped liver for example, was just legendary.

Irene: We used to do our own chicken soups -

John: Macaroni. Baked macaroni -

Irene: And the big one of course was the smoked salmon and avocado. We used to have Jewish families come in; people who wouldn't dream of visiting Taylor Square yet they would come to the Bagel House. And there were older people and families and babies. And as they're coming up the stairs you know what they're going to order and sometimes regulars would say, 'the usual', you know?

John: But it was also that we used to time the bake and spread it over the day so that we always just about had warm bagels from the oven to be served.

Irene: There were always fresh bagels right through coming up until about two or three in the afternoon on the weekend.

John: On the weekend we couldn't keep up.

Irene: Weekdays was a different story of course.

BH: So what were some of the bagels that were perennially popular?

Irene: You could start with the smoked salmon obviously - cream cheese and capers and whatever.

John: It's a standard.

Irene: It is a standard. And we used to do a chilli bean and nutmeat with tomato sauce and so on. We served it in a bowl with either bagel chips or just a bagel. We used to serve that with avocado and sour cream. That was very popular. The chopped liver was very popular. But we had some recipes of fillings that never got off the menu. We used to do our own date and walnut and cinnamon bagel. We had the peanut butter, banana and honey bagel.

BH: What was in the walnut one?

Irene: That was cream cheese, date and walnut and cinnamon. We used to make it and let it sit so the taste was quite nice. And we used to do a smoked salmon spread. We had cheese and chives - that was popular. And then we used to do one which was ricotta with fried eggplant. That was quite popular. Oh, and the BLT.

BH: Well guys, on that note I think we'll leave it there and thank you very much for talking to us!

John & Irene: You're welcome : )