You may have heard that you cannot get a good bagel outside of the New York area. There is something about New York water, so it’s impossible to make a good bagel anywhere else. We heard that too and the lack of traditional New York style bagels in Charleston seemed to confirm it.

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In 2018, Ruby's founder Kevin Roach began to question this widely accepted belief and set out to determine if he could make authentic New York style bagels in Charleston. He experimented with the dough, the fermentation process, the alkalinity of the water, and every other variable we could think of. And he succeeded in making great bagels using Mount Pleasant water. In fact, he succeeded using any water he tried. New York may be the greatest city on earth, but their water is just plain old water. He learned that what was really important was using quality natural ingredients without harmful artificial additives and an adherence to a time consuming and exacting process with no short cuts or compromises.

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After perfecting his recipes, Kevin began selling them locally through a neighborhood business. The demand he found led him to start thinking about opening a shop and he began talking to a friend about partnering with him.

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