The New Jersey Devils were on a roll as they entered the Eastern Conference Second Round but now they are also on a bagel.
Britt & Co. Bagels cooked up some incredible Devils-themed bagels for the NHL on ESPN crew ahead of Game 1 against the Carolina Hurricanes. The all-red batch came in various flavors. Some had an edible, hand-drawn Devils logo and some were made in the likeness of the team's popular mascot, NJ Devil.
The doughy treats were thoroughly enjoyed by the entire crew, including former Devils defenseman P.K. Subban, subsequently burning up social media.
"I actually enjoyed it very much, getting that order. The first hockey game I ever went to was a Devils game (back in February 2008)," Britt Zavala, the proprietor of Britt & Co. Bagels, told NHL.com. "I knew I could do the mascot."
The order came in from an old friend of hers, ESPN's Arda Ocal, who brought them out for a studio segment with colleague Greg Wyshynski, a New Jersey native. Subban and veteran broadcaster John Buccigross couldn't get enough.
And to think just a few short years ago, Britt & Co. Bagels was just an idea. It was born out of both Zavala's passion for cooking and baking and inability to remain still while during the coronavirus pandemic quarantine period.
It was her son Aiden that suggested that they hadn't made homemade bagels in a while. Zavala decided if she was going to make bagels, she was going to make them her way from her own tried and true recipe. She sent her husband, Trevor [who doubles as Britt & Co. Bagels delivery driver] to the Bronx for two 50-pound sacks of flour.
"He was like 'what are you going to do with 100 pounds of flour?'" laughed Zavala.
What she did was, after making bagels for the family, made hundreds of bagels to send out to local hospitals and health care facilities for workers fighting the pandemic. On the house.
"I started getting calls from hospitals, people saying 'these are the best bagels we've ever had,'" she said.
That's when she knew she had something. She started filling about 50-60 orders per week, charging nothing but the cost of ingredients. It quickly ballooned to 500 orders per week.
"My husband was driving about 1,200 miles per week," she said. Trevor's background as a health care worker certainly helped him navigate things.
Zavala, who said she was emancipated at a young age and was raised in part by her grandmother in Westchester, New York, graduated high school early before moving on to college. But wherever she was, she always had some artist in her, which very clearly comes through in her creations.
"It's 100 percent some of that starving artist thing," she said.
— Britt & Co. Bagels (@brittandcobagel) May 4, 2023
Zavala's bagels - from Baby Yoda to Pokemon to hundreds of other custom jobs for events, parties and pretty much any orders she can fill - are very clearly works of art in their own right. In addition to the Devils bagels, she also sent Ocal some striking Star Wars-themed bagels in advance of May the 4th.
But, especially when you are talking bagels from New York, that's only half the battle.
"They were delicious," Ocal told NHL.com. "They were all different flavors, The Devils assortment had sesame seed, everything bagels, onion. The Darth Vader (bagels) were chocolate chip."
Zavala says her family business, which includes now 14-year-old Aiden helping at the counter and even her 4-year-old son Emmett greeting customers, ships nationwide. Business got a big boost when former reality TV star Bethenny Frankel raved about her creations on social media back in January.
"The orders come in non-stop," she said with a laugh. "I fill as many as I can. I don't even count anymore."
