Steam, Systems & the Future of Bagels with Craig Hutchinson

What happens when a fine dining chef challenges one of the most traditional processes in baking? 

In this episode of The Perfect Rise, Kimberly Houston sits down with Craig Hutchinson, COO and co-owner of Olmo Bagels, to talk about how innovation, hospitality, and operational thinking helped transform a pandemic pivot into one of the most talked-about bagel brands in the country. 

Craig shares how Olmo Bagels pioneered a New Haven-style bagel by using fresh-milled grains, steam technology instead of traditional boiling, and a production system designed for consistency at scale. The conversation dives deep into bakery operations, workplace culture, training, leadership, product quality, and why “numbers don’t lie” has become a guiding philosophy inside the business. 

This episode is packed with insight for bakery owners, pastry professionals, and anyone navigating growth in the food industry without sacrificing craftsmanship or hospitality. 

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Transcript

Kimberly Houston (00:01.592)
Friends, welcome back to The Perfect Rise. In today's episode, we will be joined. Stop.

Friends, welcome back to The Perfect Rise. Today's episode is one of those conversations that perfectly sits at the intersection of craftsmanship, innovation, and operational excellence. Because while the baking industry is deeply rooted in tradition, the reality is that some of the most exciting growth happens when bakers are willing to challenge the phrase, this is how it's always been done.

Today I am joined by Craig Hutchison, the COO and co-owner of Oma Bagels, an award-winning artesian bagel shop that has helped redefine what a New Haven style bagel can be. What started as a pandemic pivot quickly evolved into a nationally recognized brand known for fresh-milled grains, incredible hospitality.

in a completely unconventional approach to bagel production. In this conversation, Craig breaks down how a moment of exhaustion and curiosity led him to rethink one of the most traditional processes in baking, swapping boiling for steam technology and how that single shift transformed consistency, workflow, training and scalability inside his business. But

This episode is about much more than equipment or process. It's really about what happens when bakery owners give themselves permission to innovate, ask better questions, and build systems that support both quality and people. We talk about culture, operational growth, leadership, hospitality, and why numbers, not ego, should drive decision making in a bakery.

Kimberly Houston (01:54.028)
So whether you're running a retail bakery, managing production, or simply trying to build a business that can scale without losing its soul, this conversation is packed with insight just for you.

Kimberly Houston 

Welcome back to the podcast everyone today. I am super excited to bring this conversation with you. We are going to be talking to Craig from Olmo Bagels in New Haven. Craig, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much, Kimberly. Okay. So let's get into what got you to this point. So you started as a fine dining chef who pivoted during the pandemic and built Omo from scratch.

What did you see in that moment that made you believe there was room to reinvent something as established as the bagel? Well, mean, survive or die in the pandemic, right? So we used a pretty simple business concept, which is called Red Ocean versus Blue Ocean. So we were looking at the New Haven food scene and saying like, all right, well, there's going to be a huge rush for all of these nice restaurants to be serving the same food.

Kimberly Houston (01:50.094)
in a delivery concept or to go concept. So like, what are we doing that's gonna get loud and noticed and also provide our community with what they might be wanting. So we looked at our bakery program and which is, you know, a lower cost of goods kind of target. And the bagel is what stood out the most. We were already making bagels, which was dumb luck. Were they good?

There's argument to that, but we had just started making more and more and more and people just kept buying and buying and buying. So about two months into the pandemic, me and my partner looked at each other and just said, this is it, we're going all in on bagels. And the line hasn't gone away. Wow. I love it. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about

your approach to bagels. So traditional bagels are boiled. You made the unconventional decision to steam them instead. What problem were you trying to solve when you started rethinking that process? I just like it when New Yorkers are mad at me. I think I really gravitate towards being yelled at by the traditional bagel enthusiast. That's what gets me out of bed in the morning. No,

In all honesty, just so much going on in the pandemic with not being able to get staff to come in with unemployment checks for what was going on with unemployment checks. We weren't able to get them in because of safety. We weren't able to get team members hired in because of just our overall revenue numbers in order to be able to just grow. So.

one very tired morning while I was boiling bagels, I took a look at my rationale oven, I, know, rationale ovens are so great for the fine dining nature of cooking that I used to do with all the controls and everything. So I was staring at my rationale, drinking a cup of coffee, staring at the pot of boiling water, staring at the rationale. And I started thinking like,

Kimberly Houston (04:07.306)
at 212 degrees with a high saturation of water moving around this bread, right? Like what would happen if I were just to load a tray in, steam it and then bake it from there? And I held the bagels next to each other. We lost a little bit of our rise on the bagel, but we got a crust on the outside and we actually got a crispier crust at least with our dough and plus

I was able to not have to go through the setup of the pot, the multiple steps of working with boiling, seeding, and then baking, and was able to kind of create a new process out of necessity for business growth, which was me getting another hour of sleep, really. And from there, we started really looking into like, okay, what benefits

does the rationale oven have for us aside from saving us on some labor? And to us, mean, the seed retention, I know we'll talk about New Haven style bagels, but seed retention is like the number one thing that we look at with our bagel and by steaming it, we actually steam the seeds into the crust of the bagel as they're going as opposed to you can't really.

boil like a sesame seed bagel already seeded up, you'll lose all your seeds. So we do have a competitive advantage with that, with seed stain on your bagel instead of in your lap. Wow. I don't know if I've ever been sleepy enough to go, I wonder if put this in the oven. It's amazing what sleep deprivation will do to you and your creativity, which any chefs listening out there, you know, you're going to go through it a lot in your career and

and you just learn how to thrive in tough situations. Agreed for sure. This sounds like a fantastic pivot, honestly. So when you are looking at steaming your bagel, because for some people this may be, we moved from like just kind of this traditional, I'm going to boil a bagel. Like I teach kids how to do bagels, right? And we're always going to boil them because I didn't know steaming was available. But when I think about that on a larger scale, that to me is like steam technology.

Kimberly Houston (06:28.998)
This is a new technology we're exploring for something that's super traditional. And I've been to Bagel Fest and bagel people are real serious about their bagels. So when you are like looking at this, you're like, okay, we're gonna do STEAM technology. Have you found a more consistent product? Is it more efficient for just you or is it more efficient for your whole team? And then for product quality, do you think the quality went up or do you think it stayed the same?

Yeah, I do think that it's more consistent only because, you know, when you're dumping a tray of bagels into the kettle, the spacing of where they are in the water, the time that you're taking from the first bagel out to the last bagel, like there are variable changes in all of that. like, sure, can the general public tell? Maybe not.

But for somebody that's around the product every single day, is helpful to automate. It's also really helpful when you talk about workplace culture to set people up for success. And what we found when we were boiling bagels, know, pre-pandemic and then early pandemic, it just, we were getting different products coming out of the oven and we're not always there to manage our team.

right, because you have to trust your team. You don't want to micromanage and stand over somebody's shoulder. So they learn through trial and error. And with that, like nobody loves hearing like, hey, this is different what happened and walking through their process. So by allowing our team to basically rely on the automation of the rationale oven, we're able to train up new bakers, not that we have any turnover in our bakery because they are just.

absolute legends and they love working at our shop. But if we were to go through any turnover, I mean, you're a smart baker, I could get you trained up in about 10 minutes on our entire process and we're moving forward and you feel good about what's coming out of the oven at all times. So to answer your question, I just think that it has opened up a world of difference in the way in which we operate rather than just looking at it from like,

Kimberly Houston (08:48.588)
we like steamed bagels better. Like it's a part of a bigger story. Yeah, I love that. And I'm always looking for ways that we can help bakers do their jobs better. And so this sounds like a win. OK, so speaking of other bakers, a lot of Artesian bakers fear that scaling means sacrifice in quality. So we've talked a little bit about how this process is going to allow you to like train up new employees.

I don't know if you want to expand and go into more than one location, multiple locations all over. But do you think that this process will allow you to maintain craftsmanship while you're increasing production? Yeah, I actually think that we've become better and more consistent as we've scaled. Now, there's a sweet spot to all that. So I am an owner operator that has

pretty much no desire. And this is a snapshot of me being 40 years old and who knows at 50 or 60 where I'll be at, but like, or even 41. But right now I have no desire to open up another bagel spot. But that being said, we're baking anywhere between 15,000 and 20,000. And I know that's a gap of 5,000, but when you start getting up into the volume, you kind of don't notice. at

even at our peak volume at 20,000 bagels a week, like we can produce pretty much the same product on that as we can with a 5,000 bagel week. And that all comes from the steps that we take to ensure the quality is the same every single time. There's certain accountability checkpoints in the process, the spacing of your proofing boards.

Those need to be the same. If they're closer together on any bagel, they're gonna start sharing steam as they go to bake, right? Obviously the oven helps in all of that. It helps a ton in all of that. And then at dough production, you know, it kind of holds you accountable to like, you can't really miss on a dough because you're making so much of it at all times. So like when you're scaling up in dough, normally,

Kimberly Houston (11:01.676)
with bagel shops, you're not just mixing a batch of dough and then you're ready to go for the next day. You're mixing 10, 12, 15 batches of dough throughout the day. And even at a hundred pounds of dough that you're moving through, it's still gonna be the same checkpoints every single time. So you really look at simplifying the process, again, to set people up for success. If you're working at a bakery that goes, just use the finger test and just figure it out, it's like,

Yeah, sure, but like that is acquired over years and over scaling. like not just the finger test, what other things, temperature, times, know, are there thermometers around the restaurant or your bakery area to be able to check in on like, what should we be expecting today? So, you know, I have no intentions of scaling, but at the same time, like,

I'd love to get up to 30,000 bagels in a week. And I still think that will provide the Olmo bagel. Yeah. Okay. So let's talk about this New Haven style bagel. So how much of, I feel like you just explained almost like the secret sauce without really giving me all the ingredients of the I gave you two of them. Of like the things. And here's how we get this done.

But how much of that signature identity comes from your process versus your ingredients? Well, it's both with our styles. the name itself came from the number one question asked early on in the business, which was, is this a New York bagel? One, people were thinking that we were buying them in from New York. And then two, they were wondering if we were doing the boil and then board and kind of a rotating up.

a technique to it all. And so we wanted to, with the brand, before you even walked into the building, we wanted to reset your expectations. So the New Haven Bagel kind of came about as like a marketing scheme. And then from there, we started being asked the next most common question, what is a New Haven Bagel? And we really didn't have an answer for a while, right? Because it really was just a deflect to say, you're not going to get a New York Bagel.

Kimberly Houston (13:21.47)
So what we've landed on over the years is one, it has to have fresh milk grains in it. So we use ground up grains out of Holyoke Mass, which is sourcing from New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts on its grains. And then we use Thrall Family Farm in Windsor, Connecticut for another one of our grains that were actually milling in-house.

And then it's King Arthur flour, the Sir Lancelot from there, which is gonna give it much more gluten structure and also the relatability of the normal bagel that you're eating out there, right? Of that white flour. So the fresh milk grains is one. Number two is steamed, not boiled. So we already covered that part of it. And then the third is that seed retention that I was talking about. So like, I think there's a perfect blend of technique.

and ingredients in that answer. And to me, what really makes the New Haven style bagel is the one that we don't talk about a lot, which is our hospitality program, which has nothing really to do with the bakery aspect of what we're talking about today with actual hands on dough and scaling your business. like, you

How many bagel shops have you been into where just it feels like somebody's disgruntled taking your order or you're an inconvenience to the morning? And it really, the stigma is starting to go away as more artisan bagel shops open up and they're giving that small bakery feel to your interactions. like, you know, we have to make room for more hospitality in our bagel industry because we're serving so many darn people every single day.

And we really have to be aware about how important we are to their day with the timing, the quality, and also just the smile or the cup of coffee that you're giving them. I love that. And while, that wasn't the star of our show today, it is absolutely something that we talk about on this podcast all the time because I think that is what helps bakeries become a best place to work.

Kimberly Houston (15:31.948)
You if you're, get up to 30,000 bagels in a week, that's a whole lot of people coming in and out and the thought that a disgruntled employee could set off multiple people having a bad day. Yeah. And listen, it happens. The pressure of service, it happens, right? We did 923 tickets on Sunday, right? 923 tickets comes out to about 4,000 bagels baked on the day. So you can imagine if you're feeding 4,000 malibus on the day, like,

What we look at is staying under 1%. And like we hit way under that on bad experience, but still like if you look at it, that you made 99 % of people happy that day and you tried making 100 % of the people happy that day, it's really all we can do. It's just the reality of the world. You're not gonna make everybody happy no matter how hard you try, right? Cause you don't know what's going on in somebody else's day. But what you can do is approach every conversation

with meeting people where they're at and trying to fit into their energy, their vibes, what they're wearing, what they wanna talk about. And if they don't wanna talk to you, that's also a form of hospitality. Back away, read the room. Yeah, I love that. I think that's my favorite thing now about ride share is that you can click silent ride when you go to talk to the person. I'm like, if we could just do this in a restaurant. I know you're happy. Okay.

Sometimes I want to gab it up with everybody in the room, But I get it. A lot of people haven't had their cup of coffee yet, right? They're not ready for a full conversation. So anyway, so three regular rules and then a fourth kind of a tailed off rule that has nothing to do with bagels. That's okay. And I love it. So as COO, where have you seen the biggest operational gains from refining your systems and your equipment?

Yeah, totally. So one, team retention, the more we lean into technology, team retention goes up. And definitely talking about the production team, right? We're always working on team retention as a whole part of the business. But like, when you walk into a room or walk into your new office and you're gonna be working with this equipment, like for me,

Kimberly Houston (17:56.994)
That was a big thing about when I would walk in and stash at a place, I would look around and be like, all right, like, you know, obviously the owner is going to hype it up to be like, I need to work here, right? But the reality is going to come into like when the Oz curtain opens up and it's like, what do you get to use? What are the fun tools that you get to use? So when you walk into our bakery, like, and you just see two polished stainless steel rationales sitting next to each other, it's just,

you're usually not gonna be getting that unless you're in like a hotel setting and then, know, all my opinions about corporate working and sorry about that, I'll stay away from it. But like, you know, just I've always been more of a family owned kind of, I've gravitated towards those businesses. And when you see that you've been pitched on like this is family owned, this is the way we do it, you're gonna be directly working.

me and you go downstairs and you see that investment that the owner is put into the business. And then you look to the side and you see an Empire bagel former, which is like top of the line as well. And then you see the giant mixer and you're like, all right, like this team is clearly invested into what they're doing. Right. And with that, you can set an expectation that like, if I'm stuck on something, I can go to ownership and saying, Hey, I have an idea.

This can help us all out. This is a piece of equipment that we'd like to use. What do you think? And we support our team with that, right? Does it happen every single time? No, it can't be Christmas every single day, but we do carve out large chunks of money throughout the year to be able to do these massive upgrades. And like, I deviated off of rationale one time. I won't say what kind of oven that I got. And it was just like, it was the biggest mistake of my career, right? Like you have to get yourself the Ferrari.

of all the equipment that you can possibly afford, even if it brings your bank account down to a scary amount. Like it's just not worth it to shortcut when it comes to your main operation. Get yourself the best stuff that you possibly can. I love that. I don't know that anyone has said that that switch like in bringing in where technology was actually helping with like employee turnover, but that makes sense to me that like it's not.

Kimberly Houston (20:16.332)
you know, super old school and I got to be in here like hurting my back trying to do things or. Yeah. And like, listen, like guess what my team has never had to do scrub out an oven. You know what I mean? Like it's just automated cleaning even is just, it's just great to know that like at the end of a busy day, you throw a tablet into the oven and it's fixed, right. And you move on to the next thing. So like it just.

All of it helps. None of us want to, well, that's not true. I do enjoy a really good deep clean at the end of getting worked over in service, but like it is, it is tough. And I do understand that as generations come up, we are losing a little bit of that tradition in, in restaurants. And that's fine. Right. Because we're working on work life balance more. We're working on the culture of the way we talk to each other more. These are the things that are important these days. So we need to rely on technology to make what my values are also.

which is a clean, high-end restaurant at all times, no questions asked. I love that. So for bakery owners who may be stuck in the, is the way it's always been done, how should they evaluate when it's time to start innovating within their operation? Yeah, that's a really tough question. Stuck is a real thing. We talk about it actually at work.

a lot and there are ways to get unstuck and I don't wanna break out all the different cheesy analogies of what got you there. But like the way we look at it is a very simple one line phrase, numbers don't lie. So like if you wanna sit there and say that the way I do things is the way I do things, this is what gets me out of bed and everything like that, like that's on you, you do have to weigh at the end of the day like,

If it does become hard at some point, I don't wanna focus too much on the negative, but if life becomes hard, be willing and open to go through that one added layer of change. And I get that change can be traumatic to people, but at what cost is your thought process getting in the way? And then how much do you trust yourself that you are filled with really good ideas?

Kimberly Houston (22:37.324)
you can push the boundaries a little bit further. And what is your support system like? Like, I would hope that you're constantly surrounded by people who are pushing you to be discovering more about yourself rather than having been surrounded by people who are suppressing you and your innovation. I believe a lot of us got into this industry because there is an un...

It is a universe of information when it comes to cooking and the science of cooking and the way to run a restaurant. like why don't just live on one planet? Like go explore, go find out new things, like fall on your face and try, right? Put up an A B tester and like give it to your guests. Can you afford the cost of goods of giving away a hundred free of a certain product to collect real life numbered data feedback?

Right? Scale of one to five. How great is this? So like, you're living by numbers, don't lie. A lot of this starts to fall into place with checking your ego to say like, you know, my favorite sandwich is the pastrami sandwich, right? And there's no way we can ever come up with a different one. All right, well, how do pastrami sandwiches sell in comparison to the rest of your menu? Right? If it's in the bottom five of your menu, I got news for you. You're in the minority of what...

of who buys this, who likes it, right? That's a true number that your business is telling you. And it's time for you to learn how to innovate and move away from that because throwing away food is the most expensive thing that you could possibly do. And it's also just not a great way to wake up in the morning knowing that you just have food waste all around you. That's, mean, you talk about getting stuck.

surrounding yourself with things like that trigger moments like that, that you wake up and face every single day. It is hard to get out of that, but you can do it. And you know, we're living proof of it to just challenge it and listen, we did not come out and tell people that we were steaming our bagels at first, right? Like we were trying to get away with it. And when we won Bagel Fest in New York City, I took the mic and I was just like, Hey, listen, New York, like you just voted for a steamed bagel.

Kimberly Houston (24:55.064)
Great job guys. Right? Like it, and it really broke it open for, for all of us steamers out there. And I get it. We're offending the traditionalists, but like there is a place for us too. And we do have a thriving business that backs it up with numbers. I absolutely love that answer. And I was like, you are speaking my language right now. the things. Okay. So final question for you. What are you still experimenting with right now at Omo? Everything.

Everything the bagel is up for grabs the chocolate chip cookie that we talked about off camera is up for grabs The way in which we compensate our team is up for grabs the way in which we receive feedback from our guests is up for grabs I mean, it's it's really when you own a business It's a juggernaut right and the business really owns you and it's your job to be asking questions that are driving new answers in new engagement because

back on the other conversation about innovation, like check your ego at the door. You're gonna be finding inspiration from absolutely everybody. And no matter what, like you just don't know where the next flavors come from. You don't know where the next technique is gonna come from. Open your ears up, ask way more questions than providing with answers because especially if you're in ownership, you do get to the point where your hands are not in the product anymore.

Right, it's your team. And so what questions are you asking your team to be able to get an understanding of what it's like to work there, what it's like to be in its current state. And that drives the innovation. It's our number one core value. If you don't know, ask. So just like, I can't recommend it to enough for the veterans, for the rookies that are listening in, just please.

Welcome to the world of bakeries and kitchens where you work with your ears instead of with your mouth. It doesn't need to be your way because it's your business's way. And there's a huge difference between that. Right. If I were to do things all over again with Olmo, it would probably have ruined the sauce of what it is. Right. We would have had a different starting point and asking different questions along the way. We'd be on a totally different trajectory. So right now, like we're just asking the

Kimberly Houston (27:17.102)
important questions that are coming up based off of feedback. And yeah, sometimes it's the bagel and that's nuts, right? Why would you change something that you're making 20,000 of in a week? because numbers don't lie, right? I'm such a broken record. I apologize. Okay. But yeah, I guess that would answer my question to that. Yes. I love it. That was fantastic and quite literally the perfect way.

to end this episode. Craig, thank you so much for joining me today on The Perfect Rise. Thank you.