Jason Litwak rolls seven to eight dozen bagels by hand every Sunday morning in his Bronxville home, then sells them to neighbors for $28 a half dozen or $50 a dozen.

Litwak, a New City native who is a lawyer by training and works full time in banking, started making bagels in February 2025 with no formal baking experience. Six months of late-night trial and error followed, fueled by YouTube videos and taste tests with neighbors, Westchester Magazine reported on Sept. 21.

"The first batch was a failure," Litwak told The Journal News in April.

He kept at it. The recipe he landed on calls for King Arthur's high-gluten Sir Lancelot flour, overnight cold fermentation and a kettle boil in filtered water and malt syrup before baking. His shorthand for a proper bagel: strong chew, real crust and tight crumb, meaning no air pockets when you slice one open.

Litwak said bagels have always been a fixation. He traces the food's history to 17th-century Poland and makes it a point to try a bagel in every new town he visits. After decades of sampling, he decided to try making his own.

He registered with the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets under the state's Home Processor Exemption, a no-fee license that allows home cooks to sell approved foods like bagels from a residential kitchen. The registration does not expire but is tied to a specific address.

He named the business Landmark Bagels. The lineup includes plain, sesame, poppy, everything, salt, onion, a black-and-white sesame "tuxedo" and occasional seasonal options.

Orders open on social media each Wednesday at 11 a.m. and go out through a weekly email list. Pickup runs from 8:30 to 10 a.m. Sundays at Litwak's Bronxville home. Orders can also be placed through landmarkbagels.com.