Lenny Rosenberg and Adaeze Nwanonyiri upgrade a classic Santa Monica spot with house-made cream cheese and gluten-free options.
Lenny Rosenberg and Adaeze Nwanonyiri are the married couple who previously owned the historic Bea’s Bakery of Los Angeles, Lenny’s Deli in Westwood, and Marmalade Cafe in Santa Monica. They took over and renovated New York Bagel Deli and Bakery at 2216 Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica last year.
We interviewed Lenny and Adaeze at the bakery, which had a line of patrons looking for the bakery’s New York-style bagels and cream cheese made for the bagels at the restaurant. The restaurant does have desserts, including the Kola Nut red velvet cupcakes, which have a caffeine kick from the Kola Nuts that grow in West Africa, including Nigeria.
Dolores Quintana: It’s around 12:00 p.m. on a weekday, and you guys have a really nice crowd here, sure. Normally, at a bagel place, it’s not that busy at midday; early morning, yes, but you have a lot of people here. What inspired you to come to Wilshire Boulevard?
Lenny Rosenberg: The store has been here for 35 years. We just purchased it in February and revamped it. We put a full bakery in. The store is busy at this time because it’s been servicing the community for a long time. Additionally, because we’ve owned several well-known restaurants in the area, like Marmalade Cafe and Lenny’s Deli in Westwood, a lot of our regular customers have followed us here now to support the bagel shop.
Dolores Quintana: What did you want to do after your other restaurants found success? What did you want to bring to the bagel business specifically?
Lenny Rosenberg: Well, mainly, we wanted to bring a full line of baked goods. We owned a bakery in the Valley, so we produced a lot of baked goods drawing from our backgrounds. We wanted to service the customers who had no idea we offered many different baked goods, which was the main thing. The other thing is that we wanted to introduce a gluten-free line. We started making homemade gluten-free bagels and gluten-free cookies.
A lot of the original items on the menu were just enhanced a little bit. We haven’t fundamentally changed the menu or the original products, but we enhanced what was already here to begin with by introducing things like fresh, house-made almond milk.
Dolores Quintana: Really? So you make your own?
Lenny Rosenberg: Oh yeah, we make it in-house.
Dolores Quintana: Oh, nice. And what type of coffee do you use?
Lenny Rosenberg: The brand name is Fearless. It’s been around for a long time, and they service a lot of the higher-end cafes in the Southern California area. We actually used to use them at Marmalade Cafe.
Dolores Quintana: Do you just do regular coffee or espresso?
Lenny Rosenberg: We do everything. We have a full espresso menu.
Adaeze Nwanonyiri: We work together as a team, but I like to elevate the aesthetics of every restaurant space that we take over. I wanted people to feel cool, and also take them on a sightseeing journey while they’re waiting in the long lines during our peak hours. The key was looking for specific colors to make their eyes pop.
We started with a neon sign of the name of our store in the front so people passing by notice us. We know the kids look at it because it attracts them. The kids want to stop and stare, and then the parents are forced to stop and look, too. They say, “What is this? Oh, I used to pass by here all the time, and I didn’t know it was there.” So, vibrant colors are number one, and then making it look inviting from the front.
Lenny and I live in Los Angeles, obviously, so we wanted to pay tribute to a tropical, lush vibe with the tarps and pine trees outside. When you walk inside, we still wanted to maintain that East Coast vibe, but again, accented with pops of color from the different signs, the artwork hanging, and the various desserts. We also added booths. There were no booths here before; it was just standard seating. We removed all the old seats and gave it a classic New York style by adding the booths.
Dolores Quintana: That really reminds people of home.
Adaeze Nwanonyiri: We get that all the time: “That reminds me of home.” The trick is to make it look great inside and out, but also ensure that the quality of the food and the product is always there.
Dolores Quintana: Yeah. I don’t want to be rude, but—
Adaeze Nwanonyiri: No, please, try it and tell us what you think!
(Pause as food is tasted)
Adaeze Nwanonyiri: So, what’s your take on the everything bagel with toasted garlic and herb cream cheese?
Dolores Quintana: Yeah, it’s really nice. I like it because it has a lot of flavor. The bagel itself definitely has that authentic taste.
Adaeze Nwanonyiri: I’m glad that you can taste the difference. People who have traveled from the East Coast notice those little details compared to the West Coast. We’re happy that you approve and that you like it. That means that we’re doing our job.
Dolores Quintana: For many years, because I was in a hurry, I would just get a bagel from Starbucks. It is a real pleasure to eat one that is made properly.
Adaeze Nwanonyiri: I love high-quality baking, and that’s the thing, too. I learned from Lenny that there’s a truly detailed bagel culture out there. Customers are really nitpicky and act like strict critics. They’ll point out if the chewiness is missing or if something else is off. So it was very important for both of us, as well as Lenny, who is the baker, to make sure those small details were exactly right.
Dolores Quintana: It really has everything. What I noticed is that it’s refined and soft, but still has that crunchiness, and the cream cheese is very nice.
Lenny Rosenberg: We mix the cream cheese right here. We make the vegetable, scallion, and other flavors in-house.
Dolores Quintana: Honestly, the creaminess, the flavor, and the texture of the bagel have a real, old-school quality.
Lenny Rosenberg: Enjoy it! Sometimes eating bagels just feels like taking in carbs, but these are genuinely good.
Dolores Quintana: I was just wondering how you two work together using your different cultural backgrounds when creating the food? If you could expand on that?
Lenny Rosenberg: It works well because we bring a lot of diversity, which allows us to create a diverse range of products for a broad customer base instead of just one demographic. I’m Jewish. My parents are from Europe, Germany, specifically, and I grew up in New York. We’ve also brought in several Nigerian recipes alongside our traditional Jewish-American, Italian, and French baked goods. Embracing our own diverse cultures has taught us to be diverse overall in how we take care of the menu.
