In late 2019, stay-at-home dad Jeff Perera started selling fresh bagels out of his Winter Garden home, turning his interest in baking the New York-style bagels he and his wife loved — but couldn’t find in Central Florida — into a small business.

Back then, he baked a maximum of about 13 dozen a day, but the business soon expanded, with the first Jeff’s Bagel Run store opening in Ocoee in 2021 and other locations following, the most recent in Clermont earlier this month. That Lake County store baked 142 dozen bagels on its opening day.

Jeff’s Bagel Run now has seven locations, eight others in development — including stores in North Carolina and Texas — and recently inked a deal to add 30 more locations across South Florida. The first of of those shops will debut in Boca Raton, Coconut Creek, and Pembroke Pines later this year.

Despite the growth, the company is still committed to selling top-notch bagels with flavors ranging from garlic bread and cinnamon sugar to salted caramel and white pizza, said Catriona Harris, the store’s vice president of marketing.

“The biggest thing is continuing our same commitment to quality,” she said. “Jeff and his wife Danielle are still in the stores every day rolling bagels, teaching people how to make bagels, doing the cream cheese and more so that we continue that same quality as we continue to grow, which is the number one most important thing.”

The new, 30-store deal is with VHP Retail Holdings, which manages a portfolio of car washes and uBreakiFix stores in South Florida.

CEO Enzo Potolicchio said he wanted to expand into the food industry and saw Jeff’s Bagel Run as good fit.

“When I heard the founding story and tasted the bagels, I was immediately sold,” Potolicchio said in a statement. “As a family-run business ourselves, I wanted a product that I would feed my own family. These are the freshest bagels I’ve ever tasted, and I’m confident the community will agree.”

Harris said the plan is to open 10 South Florida locations in each of the next three years. Typically, it takes about eight to 12 weeks from lease signing to construction completion for a location to open its doors, she added.

When a new location opens, Harris said it typically attracts both new customers and those who’d purchased bagels at Jeff’s other shops. That was true when the Celebration shop in Osceola County opened in April.

“When we opened, it was a mix of customers who had been coming to us for years and customers who said ‘I tried you and I heard of you, but now that you’re on my side of town, it’s awesome’,” Harris said. “I feel that at every opening, which is really fun to see.”

Jeff’s Bagel Run earned national acclaim last year when it was named one of America’s Best Bagels at the New York BagelFest.