Game Changers: Elyse Oleksak – Grazia USA
Bantam Bagel co-founder Elyse Oleksak calls the idea for the company “The Dream.” It did, after all, come to her husband and business partner, Nick, in the middle of the night. According to Oleksak from an excerpt in her memoir “A Shark Ate My Bagel: How We Built Bantam Bagels”: He “woke up in the middle of the night and wrote these two ideas in [his] phone: Tater Tot Truck. All different flavors of Tater Tots, all different kinds of sauces.”
While she hated that idea and told him so, it led to his next idea: “Mini bagels stuffed with cream cheese. Sort of like doughnut holes, but bagels,” Oleksak recalls him nonchalantly offering up as an alternative. She loved it, and the pair tasked themselves with creating and perfecting the recipe while maintaining their demanding Wall Street careers. Oleksak recalls that it took 71 tries to get it right before the company officially launched in 2013 and quickly gained traction, earning widespread acclaim for its innovative approach to breakfast.
A pitch on ABC’s Shark Tank led to the brand’s big break. “Lori Greiner, our partner from Shark Tank, was an incredible mentor to us,” Oleksak explains. “She guided us by teaching us how to approach business as a human being first. She was willing to offer advice without ego, allowing us to make our own decisions.”
Major ingredients in Oleksak’s success was her attention to detail and ability to map out different scenarios. “I’m a planner,” she says. “I find safety and calm in organization and planning. That said, in my business with my husband, I was always the planner, breaking down each and every micro- step, day-by-day, hour-by-hour in order to get where we needed to go. We used to joke that he’d wake up with sticky notes pasted to his face — put there by me — to begin his day.”
Oleksek’s commitment to quality and innovation propelled Bantam Bagels to nationwide success, earning accolades from both customers and industry insiders alike along with lucrative deals with major companies including Starbucks and QVC; a storefront on Bleecker Street in New York City offered the brand a brick- and-mortar home and they were featured everywhere from The Today Show and Jimmy Fallon to being one of Oprah’s Favorite Things. “Those moments were so incredible because we were two hard working nobody’s who were just chasing a dream, it showed us the humanity behind each and every person in this world. Humanity and connection became the fuel that kept us running despite a cyclone of ups and downs in the journey of building Bantam Bagels.”
Oleksak admits that having built the successful brand gave her a level of control over the future that was thrilling. “I was living in a state of constant jubilation, bursting with adrenaline,” she says. “Something to dream about, to feel great about, to aspire to, and to achieve.
The brand was sold in 2018 for $34 million to T. Marzetti Co. (it was ultimately shuttered in 2022 due to pandemic pressures), and Oleksak focused on raising her children. But the entrepreneurial spirit is still there. “I’m hoping to get back involved in small business, to give back to other companies some of the lessons that I learned along the way,” she says. “I’m currently consulting with several growth companies and am happy to get involved in more.”
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