A First Bite of Gross Bagels: Coming Soon to Tivoli

(Editor’s Note: Gross Bagels owners Andy and Jake Gross are close personal friends of mine. Am I rooting for their success? Of course! But when it comes to my journalistic responsibility to make ethical and truthful bagel recommendations, I swear to deliver a 100 percent honest review. And, honestly, Gross Bagels’ bagels rule.)  

It’s one of the most often discussed regional food topics: Where can you get some real deal New York City-style bagels? You know that neighborhood Jewish deli-style bagels with a shatteringly crisp crust and a firm-but-yielding chewy interior, with a smear of cream cheese, egg and cheese, maybe a pile of whitefish salad, Lox, pastrami, or just a little butter. This fall, on Route 9G in Tivoli, Gross Bagels aims to deliver just that. 

I managed to sneak into the future home of the bagel shop recently and tried some of the goods myself. While the full renovation of the former Jaeger Haus is just beginning, the bagel recipe is already locked in. And no, they are not gross. Ironically, they are the opposite. 

The name is their name (meaning “big” in German). Andy (Aidekman), fell for Jake's last name almost before she fell for Jake. "I asked him if we could call them Gross Bagels when we hadn't even been dating a year," she says. "He pointed out that I didn't have his last name." But she does now, and so does the new family business. 

Teethed on Bagels

Andy was teethed on frozen bagels in New Jersey and Jake was reared in New York and Los Angeles. Both attended Bard College, though they didn't meet until years later in the city of angels, where Andy worked in set and prop design and Jake was a lighting designer and tour manager.

They started making bagels together within six months of dating, working through the pandemic sourdough craze, dialing in a recipe over six months of relentless weekend batches at their own place and their parents' kitchens when visiting back East. "We just couldn't stop until they were perfect," Andy recalls.

The bagels are hand-rolled, boiled first, then baked at high heat on a pizza stone without steam, yielding something crisp, toothsome, and deep with flavor before any toppings are added. The Grosses say they were chasing the memory of how bagels made them feel as children more than one specific tradition or practice. 

“We do everything by hand, and it makes the bagels a little different and a little better, I would say, or a little like they were when we were kids, as opposed to like a really doughy bagel that you might get now. Our bagels are hot and crusty. Not gross.”

Feeling Possible

Andy's great-grandfather, she recently discovered, made bagels somewhere in the Pale of Settlement before emigrating during the turbulent start of the 20th century. 

The Grosses arrived back in the Hudson Valley during a turbulent time themselves. In January 2025, the Los Angeles wildfires took their home and nearly all of their belongings. They packed what remained and moved themselves, their then-infant son Julius Irving Gross, and their unbelievably large dog Wooly, back home. Their families were here. Their old friends were here. And the community, Andy says, met them with open arms. "We weren't scared to make a change," she says. "We got here and it felt possible."

Before the fire, starting their own bagel place in Los Angeles felt possible too. They knew they were on to something, hosting big Sunday brunch spreads for homesick New Yorkers who ate their bagels with nostalgic enthusiasm, and selling batches out the front door of their bungalow. 

After mourning the loss of the life and community they’d built in California, the Grosses settled in Red Hook, buoyed by the community they quickly reclaimed here, and started making bagels again.  

What’s to Come

The menu at Gross will be breakfast and lunch: bagel sandwiches, cream cheese in all its forms, whitefish salad (Jake's recipe), chopped chicken liver (if that’s your thing), egg and cheese, and a deli counter where you can order by weight or go off-menu entirely. Jake, who honed his kitchen instincts working at a Jewish deli in Boston and later as a cook in LA, has pastrami ambitions and plans for a major Reuben. 

“I want someone to be able to come in and just say, ‘I want a corned beef on rye, just mustard.’” Jake says. “You don’t have to stick to the eight sandwiches that are on some custom menu. I’ll make whatever you want.”

Andy puts her hand on Jake’s chest. “He’s a sandwich artist.”

“It's all about stacking,” Jake explains. “You just have to know how to stack. You can put anything on a sandwich, as long as you make sure it doesn't fall out.”

Soup, big salads, and all the traditional fixings will be here as well. Andy has decided big salads will come with a mini bagel, because, she says, “everyone should have a bagel, even people who ordered a salad. Throw it in your purse for later. Give it to a baby.” They will also be making their own pickles, eventually.

The space itself is being built out by talented friends working in the trades (the best kind of friends to have). Neil Allen is the contractor and Piper Olf, an interior architect, is shaping the design. The industrious couple are friends from Andy’s post-Bard years in Hudson. There will be lots of hand-done details, a tile floor, stained glass bagel windows from an artist friend and bathroom signs made on a machine belonging to another pal. The Gross Bagels logo does a good job of conveying the budding brand’s stylish yet whimsical creative predilections. It’s a cute, loosely drawn bagel surrounded by anthropomorphic bagel cherubs. 

“They let me keep one butt,” Andy says with pride about her hand drawn doughboys. “Can you find it?” 

The back patio, once the lawn is sorted and the town board signs off, will be picnic-table territory—the kind of place where “a Bard student can eat a sesame bagel and do homework for three hours,” Andy envisions.

While the final interior design has not yet been revealed to the public, the Grosses say they’re excited to brighten up the chalet-style former bar and restaurant and fill it with the work and energy of those who’ve supported them. 

Gross Bagels is aiming to open in October. In the meantime, the Grosses are planning a series of pop-ups in the area so you can get acquainted with their flavors—dates and locations to be announced. Follow along on Instagram for updates.