Emily Winston
an engineer, a baker, an icon.

A California transplant from the East Coast, Emily Winston grew up on the iconic NYC bagel emporium H&H. An engineer by trade, she spent countless hours in her home kitchen recreating the New York bagels of her childhood: the malty chew, the blistered crust, the impossible density.

Friends urged her to open a pop-up. Lines stretched for blocks. She left engineering and never looked back. Then came the headline that changed everything: The New York Times declared “The Best Bagels Are in California (Sorry, New York),” setting off 1,657 comments and a coast-to-coast debate over bagel supremacy.

Today, Boichik operates 12 stores and counting, anchored by an 18,000 sq-ft factory capable of producing 12,000 bagels an hour. Emily Winston has recently expanded into Los Angeles, competed at BagelFest West, and took home “Best Yeasted Bagel.” A true bagel entrepreneur, she has built a “Mensch Culture” at Boichik, and her signature Pumperthingle Everything Pumpernickel Bagel has become a Bay Area icon. She has done it all without taking a dollar of venture capital, even as Wall Street money floods into rival bagel brands. In a craft suddenly chased by capital, Emily Winston has become its conscience: proof that a tradition can scale without surrendering its soul.