Addison Moore

When Jeffrey Mao ’92 graduated from Bowdoin as a history major, he never would have imagined himself, decades later, rolling 3,000 to 4,000 bagels every weekend in his own bakery in Topsham, Maine.

Knead & Nosh, the bagel shop Mao opened this August at 4 Bowdoin Mill Island, caps a three-decade career in education. Bagels began as a hobby, something he picked up after the New York Times’ No-Knead Bread recipe convinced him home baking wasn’t as scary as he’d assumed.

“There’s no good bagels around here,” he said. “So I started trying to bake bagels. I had some minor success here and there, but a lot of failed bagels.”

A bagel-making class at King Arthur Baking in Norwich, Vt. helped him get serious.

The business began as a pandemic improvisation, after a national educational nonprofit asked him to teach an online bagel class to help people spend less time on Zoom. He built a website and kept teaching as he pursued his bagel passion.

Students from his classes started asking where to buy his bagels, and in January 2023, he began renting kitchen space from Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program (MCHPP) at Brunswick Landing. A $3-a-day Facebook ad sold 26 dozen bagels his first weekend. A monthly subscription grew into farmers’ markets, and last summer his Sichuan Dragon bagel won Maine’s Best Bagel at the state bake-off.

“This bagel thing’s kind of fun, more fun than maybe the education world. After 34 years of trying, sometimes you get to a point where you’re like, ‘I think I need a change,’” Mao said.

The storefront came together almost by accident: Mao had approached the owner of a Topsham cafe, Blueberries, about wholesaling bagels, only to learn the business had closed. He offered to lease the space instead, took possession in April and opened Knead & Nosh on August 1.

What Mao is selling is a deliberately traditional bagel, and, by his account, the only true New York-style one in the Brunswick area: cold-proofed, hand-rolled and kettle-boiled.

“We have a genuine bagel kettle,” he said. “It cost $10,000 to get that thing shipped in and installed.”

The menu extends well past the bagel case: 13 rotating flavors, five specialty cream cheeses and a multitude of sandwiches, such as the Dragon’s Breath and the Midcoast Heritage. Each bagel costs $3 with sandwiches starting at $9. Vegan sandwiches use plant-based meats and eggs from Midcoast Vegan. Regulars can also order a monthly subscription of a half dozen or a dozen bagels for pickup or delivery, and Mao teaches cooking classes through the Knead & Nosh website. The one thing he cannot guarantee is gluten-free.

Addison Moore

“This dust is all flour,” he said, swiping his finger along the back of a shelf. “We dust the room constantly, but it’s everywhere.”

Mao’s Chinese heritage runs through much of what he bakes. In 2025, he gave a talk with TEDxBowdoinCollege about how his background and the common good connects back to his cooking. In 2021, he wrote the “Essential Chinese Hot Pot Cookbook” after Chris Toy ’77 introduced him to his publisher. On Knead & Nosh’s menu, The Sichuan Dragon started as an experiment with ginger, scallion and garlic, what he calls “the equivalent of a Chinese mirepoix.” A Goji Berry Crystallized Ginger bagel draws on the same instinct. That heritage also makes Knead & Nosh the only place in the Brunswick area selling bao. He has been teaching staff to make the steamed buns, and mooncakes have joined the counter for the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Other flavors carry a message instead of a memory. The June Bagel-of-the-Month, A Malay Curry Sultana bagel, is traced back to a cookbook that named the curry Nelson Mandela’s favorite dish. A peanut butter and chocolate chip bagel for Women’s History Month nodded to Rosa Parks’ own handwritten cookie recipe, held in the Smithsonian’s collections.

“I can, in very small ways, make bagels that at least speak to me socially,” Mao said.

The shop keeps circling back to Bowdoin. The Sichuan Dragon recipe was refined with help from Bowdoin first-years on a McKeen Center Orientation Trip who volunteered at MCHPP alongside him. Students who order five different bagels, five sandwiches and five cream cheeses earn a free Yeti tumbler. Mao also credits his own Bowdoin years with the ethos behind the Common Good Bagel, a half-price bagel that customers buy and Mao donates to MCHPP. He estimates the shop has donated around 300 so far.

“We have no intention of becoming a chain,” Mao said. “This one is here, in this community.”

For now, the goal is to one day stay open seven days a week. Demand is high. Mao rolled 25,000 bagels in 2025 and matched that total in August alone.

When asked what a first-time customer should order, Mao doesn’t hesitate. “They might want to try the Dragon’s Breath sandwich, on the Sichuan Dragon bagel with Sichuan chili pickles,” he said. “Stretch your wings a little, as opposed to just going with your standard bacon, egg and cheese.”

When she visited, Morgan Ouellette ’29 ordered a Maine Blueberry Bagel with Maple Walnut Cream Cheese and said the range keeps her coming back.

“I feel like there are so many unconventional bagel and cream cheese flavors to try,’ she said. ‘”It will definitely become a bagel place that I frequent.”