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Delicious New Bagels? It’s Kismet
L OCA L
JESSE BERNSTEIN | JE STAFF
ONCE JACOB COHEN, 32,
starts talking about Castle
Valley Mill in Doylestown,
it’s tough to get him to stop.

The quality of the flour that
is produced, the couple that
owns the mill, the size of the
orders that he’s making from
there — it all comes out in an
excited rush.

Yet before March of this
year, he’d never heard of it.

Cohen and his wife,
Alexandra, 29, began the
pandemic as, respectively, a
real estate agent and an adver-
tising salesperson. Today, they’re
professional bakers, producing
close to 2,000 bagels every week
under the banner of Kismet
Bagels, described as New York
on the inside, Montreal on the
outside. They’re on the menu at
Memphis Taproom, baked fresh
for Di Bruno Bros. on Chestnut
Street on the weekends and
available for pick-up in Ardmore.

Two people who didn’t really
know how to bake this time last
year would like to put a hot bagel
(or 12) in your hands, soon.

The couple batted around lots
of names when the venture grew
to the point that such a discus-
sion was necessary, and there
were some strong contenders.

But when Alexandra suggested
Kismet, it was over. It didn’t just
describe the bagels, they felt; it
described their lives together.

“When I said that name,
I was like, ‘Oh, that’s it,’”
Alexandra said.

Jacob and Alexandra met
as small children at the shore
through their grandparents,
Jacob and Alexandra Cohen, back when Kismet Bagels could still be run
from their home. 
Photo courtesy of Jacob and Alexandra Cohen
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who had been friends since
the 1960s. Though the two lost
touch for many years, pursuing
careers on different coasts,
kismet — and a well-timed
run-in with Alexandra’s grand-
mother — eventually brought
them back together.

“It’s not an arranged
marriage, but it is might well
be,” Jacob laughed. In March,
the pair were working jobs that
were utterly devoid of bagels.

With more free time than ever,
and with worries about the food
supply chain, they decided to get
in on a trend, and try out baking.

Jacob’s mother and grand-
mother are both “absolutely
phenomenal” bakers, he said,
but the gene had not made
its way to his hands, and
Alexandra was similarly
bereft. Naturally, they bought
40 pounds of flour and eight
pounds of yeast to start with.

When Alexandra woke up
one day craving a bagel, both
qua bagel and as a little slice of
normalcy, Jacob — “naively and
arrogantly,” by his own admis-
sion — decided to give it a shot.

Though neither of them had ever
baked, they’d followed instruc-
tions before, and it paid off: The
bagels turned out wonderfully.

Before long, they were dropping
off batches for family members,
wondering what’d taken them
so long to start.

It was Alexandra who
decided that the bagels should
function as more than breakfast.

Writing on their neighbor-
hood Facebook group’s page,
Alexandra asked if there was a
way to donate bagels to hospital
workers. They were guided
instead to sell the bagels and
donate the proceeds. Thirty
orders later, the Cohens had
dough all over their home.

One week later, the
Northern Liberties Business
Improvement District asked
them if they’d like to try out
a pop-up store, working out of
a professional kitchen. Jacob
was hesitant — this was just
supposed to be a fun little
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