Stew’s House of Bagels has been offering its fresh, New York-style bagels in a modest Largo shopping center for four decades. The store is now introducing a dinner club.
Owner E.J. Vildostegui, who acquired Stew’s from long-time owner Stew Medjuck in 2025, along with operations manager Michael Deininger, intends to organize a series of small-scale events within the compact, straightforward venue. Each event will present a unique menu highlighting bagels and other homemade items, including bagelettes, which are small bagels, and bialys, a blend of bagels and English muffins.
The concept for the dinner club originated from tinned fish gatherings that Deininger hosted at the local barber shops where he was employed. Emphasizing seafood at its freshest, he would invite friends and family to come together over cans of smoked trout with chimichurri, sardines in preserved lemon, and other varieties accompanied by condiments such as pickles and rustic bread. At Stew’s, he aimed to expand this idea using bagels on a bigger scale.
Deininger and Vildostegui quietly hosted a tinned fish night a month ago, hanging out and enjoying themselves with a guest list mostly consisting of friends from the hospitality industry. It was so successful that the pair are now perfecting the experience for the shop’s first public dinner club event.
“We aim to take our time and gradually present the things we’ve been working on here, along with items we believe would complement bagels in an enjoyable way,” said Deininger, who has experience in fine dining and catering.
Taking over the front of the shop, the event will have a relaxed and communal atmosphere, with music playing and guests mingling while they eat. Tinned fish will be served throughout the meal, beginning with a grazing area. Guests will assemble their own bites from a selection centered on bagels and seafood options — including sardines, smoked lox, and oysters — along with various pickles, peppers, fresh herbs, butters, and homemade dips featuring crème fraîche, sour cream, and Stew’s cream cheese. After that, they’ll gather around a long table for five courses with refined dining elements. Deininger is also considering a caviar service, which would replace traditional blini with bagelettes.
A forthcoming dinner club gathering will highlight bialys, while another will feature pasta al forno, also known as baked pasta, adorned with Deininger’s homemade mozzarella and accompanied by cream cheese-filled garlic bagels. Stew’s is also planning a bagel omakase. Imagine porchetta and roasted beef prepared in-house, providing a preview of the new lunch sandwiches the shop is set to introduce, presented as part of an eight-course tasting menu with a land and sea theme.
Just like the pop-up events and partnerships Stew’s has with food and beverage companies on both sides of the bay, the dinner club serves as a method to spread awareness about the established venue and its New York-style bagels.
Stew’s is not too far from St. Petersburg or Tampa, and Vildostegui considers his shop’s central location to be an advantage. He has observed an increasing number of customers visiting on weekends since the pop-ups began.
A great product will sell on its own. But I believe in opening up the potential that Stew created with the bagel shop over almost 40 years, with the quality and everything, and keeping the recipe consistent. I think building upon that and getting people outside the Largo-Clearwater area to try and experience the bagels is really important,” Vildostegui said. “When I purchased it, that was my main objective, to establish a standard for a bagel shop in the Tampa Bay area.
The dinner club arrives at an opportune moment, as bagels are experiencing a surge in popularity locally. The area has embraced several new locations offering the breakfast favorite in the last six months, primarily in Tampa, including well-known names such as PopUp Bagels and H&H Bagels.
Stew’s crafts its modest products the classic manner — fermented, boiled, and baked — utilizing premium, traditional malt and quality flour. From shaping the bagels to presenting them, the entire process is mostly performed by hand, relying on touch and intuition, with dedication and patience.
Vildostegui mentioned that his grandfather had been familiar with the former owner for many years and started taking him to Stew’s when he was a teenager. When the chance to buy the business arose, Vildostegui seized it.
“E.J. received an incredible bagel recipe when he acquired this establishment. So Largo is aware of our bagels, but others aren’t, and we aim to create a culture around this exceptional product that we’ve been fortunate to provide,” Deininger said.
The store bakes approximately 40 dozen bagels each Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, increasing the amount to roughly 60 dozen daily from Friday to Sunday.
“Everyone has their own favorites,” Vildostegui said. However, the classics are all present, ranging from egg and sesame to cinnamon raisin and everything, along with a variety of homemade cream cheese flavors (dill pickle schmear, for instance?).
Stew’s is looking at the first week of April for the inaugural dinner club night, with seating available for approximately 16 guests. The best way to keep updated on event and ticket information is to follow@stewsbagels on Instagram.
In the meantime, keep an eye out for the new sandwiches that include classic Italian tastes, which are expected to be added to the menu in roughly two weeks. Deininger mentioned that the store will be extending its hours to offer them from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Bagel enthusiasts can also discover Stew’s at a few upcoming temporary events in St. Petersburg: March 1 at 86 Wine Bar and March 8 at Golden Isles Brewing Co., with Stew’s set to have a residency every other Sunday following that.
Vildostegui hopes his store will serve as a gathering place for residents and individuals from the northern region who may long for a taste of their homeland. And in order to avoid any culinary disputes, but…
“I’ll stand by our bagels against anyone’s bagels in Florida,” he said.
