Close to a year after interior damage from a fire forced Ravaa’s Bagels to close, the family-owned Wading River deli reopened Friday to a continuous queue of customers.
“It’s super nice to hear that the community is happy to have us back,” says Alican Isik, who co-owns the shop (6278 NY-25A, Wading River, 631-821-0500) with his sister, Eileen. “People were saying, ‘We haven’t had bagels in 10 months; we don’t want to go anywhere else.’ It’s the best thing to hear.”
(Photo Credit: Rachel Young)
The Isik siblings, who live in Shoreham, initially opened Ravaa’s in July 2025 after taking over the former Bagel Buddies space across the street from the King Kullen shopping center.
The duo quickly garnered a dedicated following with their cold-proofed, steam-injected baked bagels; breakfast and lunch combos; and selection of rotating Turkish pastries like baklava and açma, a bread ring that looks like a bagel but is texturally closer to a croissant. The baked goods are prepared by the Isiks’ mother, Fidime, an Istanbul native who moved to the U.S. with her family in 2000.
“My mom is very traditional Turkish,” Alican says. “She’ll make something; she’s like, ‘Oh, I think this would do good’ and I’m like, ‘Okay, let’s give it a try.’”
A tray of baklava baked by the Isik’s mother, Fidime. (Photo Credit: Rachel Young)
But business suddenly came to a halt in the early hours of Nov. 18, 2025, less than five months after Ravaa’s opened, when Alican received a call from the police telling him there had been a fire at the neighboring pizzeria Pazzo Ristorante. Ravaa’s sustained smoke and water damage; For Goodness Cakes, a nearby bakery, was similarly damaged and reopened this past June.
“It was, like, the worst phone call to get at three in the morning,” Alican says, and reopening the deli “was a long, stressful process with a lot more waiting than I thought it would really be. Until three weeks ago I didn’t have any meters, so we were working in the dark with no power, asking our neighbors to put extension cords out.”
Until the fire, Selin Ikiz, who lives in Coram, regularly stopped at Ravaa’s on her way to work for an everything bagel topped with bacon, egg and cheese. During the nine months the building was repaired, though, she mostly opted to eat breakfast at home.
“I tried a couple places but, you know, [they] didn’t meet my expectations,” says Ikiz. Eileen Isik is happy to satisfy those requirements, saying that Friday felt as exciting as the first day of school.
“I’m so giddy,” she says. “I put my clothes out last night and was like, ‘Let’s go.’ I’m so ready.”
Ravaa’s Bagels is open every day from 5:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Follow them on Instagram @ravaasbagels.
