Jay Rushin has heard all your pop-culture wisecracks about H&H Bagels, the iconic New York bakeshop headed to South Florida. And he wants you to keep them coming.
No, Dwight Schrute isn’t showing up to bribe anyone with a basketful of bagels, as he did on “The Office.” No, Tom Hanks’ Joe Fox won’t walk his dog beside the new Boca Raton storefront, à la “You’ve Got Mail.” And no, strike-happy Cosmo Kramer from “Seinfeld” hasn’t sabotaged the bagel machines again.
But Rushin, H&H’s chief executive officer, is ready for any scenario. “If that happens, we’ll have to call in security and get Kramer kicked out,” he says, with a laugh.
Rushin is keen to embrace H&H’s as-seen-on-TV fame (“Friends,” “Saturday Night Live,” “Entourage,” “How I Met Your Mother”) as his vaunted Big Apple bakery prepares to open its first location outside of New York.
When it opens Monday, Sept. 30, the new Glades Road shop will be the first of 50 new franchises planned nationwide, followed by an outpost in West Palm Beach’s new $1 billion NORA District in February 2025, and Fort Lauderdale and Miami sometime in 2026. A grand-opening party with a ribbon-cutting is planned for Wednesday, Oct. 2.