Bill Caldecutt is primarily an academic, working as a professor at Polk State College, but he also grew up working with his father doing pool repairs in New York.
“I think a lot of the things that are good about me — there are some good things — I think most of that stuff stems from the experiences that I had out working with (my dad) learning responsibility, dealing with people, learning how to do things, learning skills,” Caldecutt said.
Because of those experiences, Caldecutt wanted his own children to have the same opportunity. During the pandemic, Caldecutt got into baking, like many people did. This led him to an idea.
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“So I thought what I did for a living doesn’t lend itself to that. So we invented something that would work for that,” he said. “So I kind of took this new baking obsession and tried to transform it into something that I could use to help out with my kids, let them get up in the morning, learn some responsibility, have some fun, you know, and do something really fascinating.”
From that idea, Bagel Boy was born.
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“I’m a New York transplant and like all people who move down here, you miss the foods that you grew up with — things that you took for granted, and that you now miss,” he said. “So bagels, pizza — I tried making all of those things.”
Although Caldecutt pushed forward with the idea, it is really all about his children.
“My wife and I are trying to make this learning experience. It’s a homeschooling project in a lot of ways,” he said. “So a lot of it is about trying to understand the value of money and how to how to maximize what you can get out of what you have and so we’re trying to teach them that it’s not just a simple matter of go buy an expensive oven and do something with it. You also want to think about how to make it more efficient.”
As such, even though he does offer a lot of help and support, it’s Caldecutt’s children who handle a lot of the work.
“The night before, that’s when my son will start with the dough mixing, that’ll be maybe 10 o’clock or so at night,” he said. “So after all the orders are in — so he’ll be mixing dough for probably an hour or so while I’m rolling and that’ll go on for a couple of hours at night. And then they have a rest in the refrigerator as raw bagels. And then at about five in the morning, the kettle gets lit on the stove, and we start to boil and bake.”
Caldecutt and his children then deliver the bagels around their community.
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“We deliver to people in about 30 different subdivisions around where we live, we have a little radius where we know that we can reach, so the two boys and I will do the delivery Sunday morning and a couple of people who are a little bit too far away will ask us if they can come and pick up,” he said.
On the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Caldecutt shares how he was able to keep costs down when buying equipment for his home business. He also shares where the name came from and all the different bagel varieties they offer.
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Florida Foodie is a biweekly podcast from WKMG and Graham Media that takes a closer look at what we eat, how we eat it and the impact that has on us here in Florida and for everyone, everywhere. Find new episodes on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you download your favorite podcasts.