[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 200 (Wednesday, December 19, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7908-S7910]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TRIBUTE TO LLOYD SQUIRES
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, small business are at the heart of many
communities around the country, but in a small State like Vermont,
local businesses and their owners truly bring people together. Lloyd
Squires and his bustling Burlington bagel business, Myer's Bagels, is
one example. For the past 22 years, Lloyd has dedicated his life to
running this Vermont establishment, making more than 3,000 hand-rolled
bagels every day.
Lloyd grew up in Montreal and struggled with homelessness as a
teenager. However, his life turned around at age 15 when Myer
Lewkowicz, the owner of the Montreal-famous St-Viateur Bagel, offered
Lloyd a job that allowed him to finish school, put a roof over his
head, and learn from Myer's teaching. Myer had moved to Montreal and
started his bagel business in the 1950s, having survived the Buchenwald
concentration camp. Lloyd worked side-by-side with Myer for 15 years
until Myer passed away. To honor his mentor, Lloyd opened up Myer's
Bagels in Burlington, VT, in 1996.
Lloyd has worked tirelessly over the last two decades to develop his
growing business. Before Lloyd received his green card, he would drive
the 4-hour roundtrip from his home in Montreal to Burlington, VT, each
day. Lloyd lives much closer now, but still drives 4 hours each day to
deliver bagels around the region. Lloyd gives 1,200 bagels away each
week to local charities. When asked, Lloyd will tell you that his
favorite part about running his business and working incredibly long
hours is being able to talk to his customers and develop close
relationships with the community.
I am proud to recognize the business and community that Lloyd Squires
has helped create in Vermont over the past 20 years.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a Burlington
Free Press article titled, ``A day in the life of Lloyd Squires,
Vermont's `best' bagel maker.'' It shares Lloyd's hard work and the
story of how he has gone from being homeless as a teenager to a
cornerstone of our community.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Burlington Free Press, Nov. 23, 2018]
Day in the Life of a Bagel Maker
(By Evan Weiss)
Lloyd Squires, 54, wakes up in his South Burlington home as
he does every day: without an alarm. He puts on a layer of
Under Armour, a Montreal Canadiens T-shirt and a matching
Canadiens hat.
He likes hockey. He'd fallen asleep around 9:30 the night
before, watching his team lose to the Sabres.
He rarely gets four hours of sleep.
2:00 a.m.
Lloyd, the founder and co-owner of Myer's Bagels, drives to
a gas station and picks up a cup of coffee.
In Burlington, Kountry Kart Deli is busy making sandwiches
for a less-thansober crowd. It is late for them, early for
Lloyd.
2:10 a.m.
He turns off Pine Street and arrives at Myer's, backing
into a spot that directly faces the shop. I tell him I think
that says something about him, that most people would pull
straight in. He says he likes to shine his headlights on the
bakery because it's been broken into three times this year.
If there's ever danger, he says later, there's a machete
hidden inside.
He unlocks the door and a large banner welcomes us in
cursive: Myer's Bagels. A Taste of Old Montreal.
Myer Lewkowicz, the namesake for the shop, was a survivor
of Buchenwald concentration camp. He moved to Mile End,
Montreal's historically Jewish neighborhood, in 1953 and
cofounded the famous St-Viateur Bagel in 1957.
In 1980, Lloyd was 15 and homeless, sleeping in a park for
five days. He took an overnight factory job and went to
schoolduring the day. After his third shift, walking by St-
Viateur at 3 a.m., Myer asked what he was doing out so early
every morning. He offered Lloyd a job on the spot, a job
Lloyd credits with saving his life: 13-hour days, Friday,
Saturday and Sunday, so he could stay in school.
Later, Myer would offer Lloyd the day shift, which he
happily accepted. He'd soon discover that the ``day shift''
was 3 a.m. to 4 p.m. six days a week.
2:11 a.m.
[[Page S7909]]
``First thing I do is put on the radio. First person gets
to choose the station for the day.'' Lloyd chooses country
music.
2:12 a.m.
He turns the faucet to fill the kettle. Bagels are
traditionally made by boiling before baking (though some
commercial bakers will use steam to save time and money).
2:14 a.m.
He re-activates the fire with paper and Middlebury-sourced
wood.
New York-style bagels, the most common variety, are usually
machinerolled, boiled in tap water and baked in a gas oven.
Montreal-style bagels are traditionally hand-rolled, boiled
in honey water and baked in a wood-fired oven.
2:15 a.m.
He mixes Red Star yeast with a bucket of water and gets the
flour ready.
2:25 a.m.
He throws all of the ingredients into a 50-year-old
Canadian mixer. He says he has a new $20,000 model waiting in
the wings, but he likes the old one better--it's the same
kind he learned on at St-Viateur.
He likes reminiscing about his time there. Myer, he says,
once bought football tickets for six employees. They all
showed up to St-Viateur, excited, and stuffed into Myer's
car. He drove two blocks, parked and told them they were all
taking the subway: ``I'm not paying for parking.'' Myer later
helped Lloyd buy his first house.
Lloyd worked at St-Viateur for 15 years, half of his life
at that point, and only left after Myer died of cancer.
2:32 a.m.
Lloyd makes coffee, so some will be ready when the shop
opens at 4 a.m.
The fire is already roaring.
3:06 a.m.
He pours the requisite honey into the kettle.
3:27 a.m.
The gluten-free bagels are ``dropped'' first. Lloyd created
his own GF flour mix and is the only one who makes it in the
bakery. In total, he has 42 bagel recipes.
His favorite is ``Montreal Spice Whole Wheat . . . which we
don't sell. I make them just for me.''
3:30 a.m.
The first batch of dough is ready. On a normal day, the
bakery will go through four of these 140-pound masses.
3:32 a.m.
The rolling begins.
The room already smells of honey and toasted sesame seeds.
3:40 a.m.
The boiling begins.
As Lloyd drops the first gluten-full bagels, he says he
sees money differently. ``When I bought a car, I went,
`That's 15,000 bagels. I have to make those!' ''
3:52 a.m.
Baker Matt Audette, 25, covers the boiled bagels in
rosemary. They go in the oven immediately. Matt was born and
raised in Vermont, but came from a pretzel-baking job in
Washington, D.C. He likes the early hours.
4:02 a.m.
17-year-old Kyle McGuire has worked at Myer's for two
months, and Lloyd is by his side, training him to roll. When
Kyle is done with his shift, he'll go home to shower and head
to Colchester High School, where he's a senior.
Lloyd says he trained 100 bakers at St-Viateur; 75 are
still there.
4:08 a.m.
The shop has been open for eight minutes.
Everyone is working quickly before the morning rush.
4:09 a.m.
The second batch of dough goes in the mixer.
4:16 a.m.
The ready bagels are tossed into a long metal tray called
the chute.
Lloyd organizes them.
4:34 a.m.
Matt ensures the boiled bagels are fully covered. The honey
in the water helps make everything stick.
4:58 a.m.
The first customers arrive, tired and hungry.
5:06 a.m.
Lloyd moves to the station where his team slices bagels
headed for bags. He explains that each bagel has to be cut
with a knife because the hand-rolling process results in
varying shapes unfit for a standard slicer. There were three
main jobs at St-Viateur, he says: bagging, rolling and
baking. Myer had told Lloyd that as he worked his way up,
he'd make more money. Lloyd retold this story, laughing,
because he learned that the increased pay didn't come from a
better hourly rate, but from the longer hours required:
baggers worked 20, rollers worked 40 and bakers worked 75.
5:18 a.m.
Batch two is ready for rolling. There are five ingredients
in the dough:
-King Arthur's Sir Lancelot High-GlutenFlour
-Malted Barley Flour ? Sugar
-Water
-Yeast Lloyd estimates that 3,000 to 4,000 pounds of King
Arthur flour and 400 pounds of Green Mountain Creamery cream
cheese are consumed during an average week.
5:30 a.m.
Lloyd finally sits down for breakfast: a plain bagel with
lox, scallion cream cheese and tomatoes. He washes it down
with a Natalie's orange juice and is done by 5:35 a.m. It's
the only non-bathroom break he takes during his 8.5 hours in
the bakery.
5:38 a.m.
The chute is already littered with seeds beneath the wire
baskets. Over the course of the day, three to five pounds of
seeds will end up there. They'll be collected and thrown in
the fire because they still have oil.
``It flavors the oven,'' Lloyd says.
5:39 a.m.
He mans the oven, which he built with three friends over
five 18-hour days, using 3,700 fire bricks. He'll
occasionally make pizza with his dough, adding crushed
tomato, garlic and 15-year-aged provolone, which he'll top
with his Montreal spice mix. It's not on the menu, but he'll
make it for party-sized orders.
6:36 a.m.
Dough number three is thrown in the mixer.
It's clear that the machine is old: a clamp and bag of
flour keep it closed.
6:40 a.m.
A rush of customers begins.
6:47 a.m.
Lloyd rolls with Kyle again.
Matt and Kyle explain how Lloyd can roll a bagel and throw
it perfectly into place anywhere across the table, or even
into the oven.
6:55 a.m.
Lloyd rolls alone again.
I clock him at roughly a baker's dozen per minute. He says
he could get up to 38, if needed, though he's recovering from
an eye injury. He's worked with people who could do 40 to 45,
no problem.
7:32 a.m.
Matt calls out, ``Fresh rosemary!''
Two customers grin and peer over to see the bagels lobbed
into the chute.
The bagels are flipped and flung using a long wooden paddle
called a shebah. The spelling of this word varies. When asked
why it's called a shebah, Lloyd says, ``That's what he called
it.''
``He'' means Myer.
Lloyd used to buy the paddles in Montreal, but now
commissions them from Sterling Furniture Works across the
street. They start as blonde, unvarnished wood. Over time,
they develop a dark patina in the oven, the far edge turning
black.
7:36 a.m.
Kyle asks Lloyd, ``How's it going?''
Lloyd replies, ``Living the dream.''
He always responds, ``Living the dream'' or ``Rolling in
the dough,'' Kyle says.
They both laugh.
7:50 a.m.
The rolling continues. Lloyd estimates they've made 110
dozen bagels thus far.
They bake between 250 and 300 dozen on an average day, he
says, which is 3,000 to 3,600 bagels for those of us who
don't think in dozens.
8:08 a.m.
One burnt bagel comes out of the oven. It goes into the
fire next to the seeds.
Lloyd says Myer couldn't stand seeing anything wasted
because of his time in the Holocaust. According to the St-
Viateur website, Myer once spoke to a high school class and
said, ``At Buchenwald, all I dreamt of was a piece of
bread.''
8:10 a.m.
Kyle leaves, but before he does, out of earshot of Lloyd,
he says, ``He's a really awesome boss.''
8:16 a.m.
Lloyd takes the last sip of his gas station coffee, over
six hours after he bought it.
A group of visiting Austrians, who stopped by the day
before, say hi. One takes a picture, and Lloyd gives her a
free bagel.
8:20 a.m.
Lloyd hands a bag to someone from a local non-profit. He
estimates that on an average week, he donates 100 dozen to
local charities, including the Flynn Center for the
Performing Arts and Resource's YouthBuild.
8:23 a.m.
A police officer arrives for breakfast.
8:24 a.m.
There's a line, and the tables are full. Lloyd won't tell
you, but Myer's has been named best bagel shop in Vermont by
Epicurious, among others.
Why? It could be because people love Lloyd; he prefers
phone orders to web orders because he likes talking to his
customers and seeing how they're doing. It could be because
he learned from Myer Lewkowicz, one of the Montreal-style
originators. It could be because St-Viateur has greatly
expanded its bagel production while Myer's is still only made
in one bakery, one batch at a time. It could be all three.
8:34 a.m.
The third batch of dough is ready. Lloyd cuts into it and
it looks like a sushi chef cutting into a side of tuna.
8:50 a.m.
An ex-Montrealer, who now owns a business in Winooski,
greets Lloyd in French. Lloyd later says that the man,
Marcel, was his first-ever customer in 1996.
9:00 a.m.
A group of people watch Lloyd roll his bagels. I ask what
it's like to always be watched. He says, ``I like to talk to
people.''
9:05 a.m.
Trisha Ubermuth, 25, stands on a milk crate to organize the
bagels.
In the past, Lloyd has told the story that she once came in
as a child and declared she'd work there one day. It's not
true, but Lloyd tells me that bagels are, in fact, a family
business.
His sister, mother and nephew still work at St-Viateur. His
daughter works for his cousin who runs his own bagel shop,
Brossard Bagel, just outside of Montreal.
9:07 a.m.
[[Page S7910]]
Lloyd gives a free, hot poppy seed bagel to Marcel, knowing
it's his favorite.
9:31 a.m.
The rush slows. Everyone works at the same pace.
10:31 a.m.
Lloyd finally leaves, but he's not done. Ahead of him, he's
got over four hours of driving through Northern Vermont with
seven bagel drop-offs on the way. He doesn't dread it though,
it's a pretty drive. And, ``I love getting out and meeting
people.''
He's got another bagel inhand for lunch. ``My car is
covered in sesame seeds,'' he says.
7:15 p.m.
He finally gets home after only stopping for a break at
Piecasso in Stowe. He's used to long drives.
When he first opened Myer's in 1996, he commuted from
Montreal, leaving at midnight every ``morning.'' He got his
green card in 1997. After three years of the 100-mile
commute, and a car accident caused by sleeping at the wheel,
he moved to Vermont. He then worked 15-hour days, seven days
a week for seven years.
``I've never worked less than 65 hours a week,'' he says.
He's barely gotten outside of Vermont and Montreal because
of the schedule. Now, fortunately, he gets a day off on the
weekend. He's recently been to both Connecticut and Boston.
He hopes one day to retire in Nova Scotia. But, first, he's
going to open a new take-and-bake bagel business with his
friend Sid Berkson in Enosburg Falls.
And, he's still got a bakery to run.
9:30 p.m.
He drinks chamomile tea and falls asleep, again, to hockey.
The next morning, he wakes up without an alarm at 1:15 a.m.
It's Saturday, and there will be twice as many customers. He
looks forward to meeting them.
____________________