Brooklyn’s oldest bialy store will soon be toast.
Coney Island Bialys and Bagels on Coney Island Avenue in Gravesend, which opened 91 years ago, will turn off its ovens for good soon.
Storeowner Steven Ross, 51, said he’s “heartbroken” but the recession and a recent mass exodus of bialy- and bagel-loving Jews from the area left him with little choice.
In 1920, his grandfather, Morris Rosenzweig, opened his first shop in East New York.
It later relocated to the current site.
Rosenzweig was born in Bialystok, Poland, the town that gave its name to the bialy — a cousin of the bagel that is flatter, with no hole but a depressed center topped with onion bits.
“Most of our steady customers began to leave the city after 9/11,” he said.
“We’ve lost most longtime, steady customers who’d come in Saturday nights and Sunday mornings for bagels and cream cheese or lox.”
Much of the neighborhood’s once-large Jewish contingent has been replaced with Asian, Russian and Middle-Eastern residents who Ross said prefer cheaper options than his hand-rolled baked bialys and bagels.
Ross said much of his remaining steady business comes from longtime customers who now reside in New Jersey and make special trips to Brooklyn for his products.
Ross said that after today he’ll be down to only two employees and himself.
He says things are so bad financially that he doubts he’ll be able keep the business open through the Jewish holidays in October as he had hoped.
“I’m operating week to week,” he said.
After working at the store since age 8, Ross said he’s unsure what he’ll do to keep busy.
He’s a volunteer firefighter in his hometown of Manalapan, NJ, but is on disability after recently being injured on the job.
“This business has meant a lot to my family.” he said.
“It’s something my grandfather started. I worked with my siblings for many years here. My mother is still alive and is heartbroken also.
“My son was working with me, and is now going back to school. It’s affected all of us.”