1:15 a.m.

Lloyd Squires, 54, wakes up in his South Burlington home as he does every day: without an alarm. He puts on a layer of Under Armour, a Montreal Canadiens T-shirt and a matching Canadiens hat. He likes hockey. He'd fallen asleep around 9:30 the night before, watching his team lose to the Sabres.

He rarely gets four hours of sleep.

2:00 a.m.

Lloyd, the founder and co-owner of Myer's Bagels, drives to a gas station and picks up a cup of coffee.

In Burlington, Kountry Kart Deli is busy making sandwiches for a less-than-sober crowd. It is late for them, early for Lloyd.

2:10 a.m.

He turns off Pine Street and arrives at Myer's, backing into a spot that directly faces the shop. I tell him I think that says something about him, that most people would pull straight in. He says he likes to shine his headlights on the bakery because it's been broken into three times this year. If there's ever danger, he says later, there's a machete hidden inside.

He unlocks the door and a large banner welcomes us in cursive: Myer's Bagels. A Taste of Old Montreal.

Myer Lewkowicz, the namesake for the shop, was a survivor of Buchenwald concentration camp. He moved to Mile End, Montreal's historically Jewish neighborhood, in 1953 and co-founded the famous St-Viateur Bagel in 1957.

In 1980, Lloyd was 15 and homeless, sleeping in a park for five days. He took an overnight factory job and went to school during the day. After his third shift, walking by St-Viateur at 3 a.m., Myer asked what he was doing out so early every morning. He offered Lloyd a job on the spot, a job Lloyd credits with saving his life: 13-hour days, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, so he could stay in school.

Later, Myer would offer Lloyd the day shift, which he happily accepted. He'd soon discover that the "day shift" was 3 a.m. to 4 p.m. six days a week.

2:11 a.m.

"First thing I do is put on the radio. First person gets to choose the station for the day." Lloyd chooses country music.

2:12 a.m.

He turns the faucet to fill the kettle. Bagels are traditionally made by boiling before baking (though some commercial bakers will use steam to save time and money).

2:14 a.m.

He re-activates the fire with paper and Middlebury-sourced wood.

New York-style bagels, the most common variety, are usually machine-rolled, boiled in tap water and baked in a gas oven.

Montreal-style bagels are traditionally hand-rolled, boiled in honey water and baked in a wood-fired oven.

2:15 a.m.

He mixes Red Star yeast with a bucket of water and gets the flour ready.

2:25 a.m.

He throws all of the ingredients into a 50-year-old Canadian mixer. He says he has a new $20,000 model waiting in the wings, but he likes the old one better — it's the same kind he learned on at St-Viateur.

He likes reminiscing about his time there. Myer, he says, once bought football tickets for six employees. They all showed up to St-Viateur, excited, and stuffed into Myer's car. He drove two blocks, parked and told them they were all taking the subway: "I'm not paying for parking."

Myer later helped Lloyd buy his first house.

Lloyd worked at St-Viateur for 15 years, half of his life at that point, and only left after Myer died of cancer.

2:32 a.m.

Lloyd makes coffee, so some will be ready when the shop opens at 4 a.m.

The fire is already roaring.

3:06 a.m.

He pours the requisite honey into the kettle.

3:27 a.m.

The gluten-free bagels are "dropped" first. Lloyd created his own GF flour mix and is the only one who makes it in the bakery.

In total, he has 42 bagel recipes.

His favorite is "Montreal Spice Whole Wheat... which we don't sell. I make them just for me."

3:30 a.m.

The first batch of dough is ready. On a normal day, the bakery will go through four of these 140-pound masses.

3:32 a.m.

The rolling begins.

The room already smells of honey and toasted sesame seeds.

3:40 a.m.

The boiling begins.

As Lloyd drops the first gluten-full bagels, he says he sees money differently. "When I bought a car, I went, 'That's 15,000 bagels. I have to make those!'"

3:52 a.m.

Baker Matt Audette, 25, covers the boiled bagels in rosemary. They go in the oven immediately.

Matt was born and raised in Vermont, but came from a pretzel-baking job in Washington, D.C. He likes the early hours.

4:02 a.m.

17-year-old Kyle MᶜGuire has worked at Myer's for two months, and Lloyd is by his side, training him to roll. When Kyle is done with his shift, he'll go home to shower and head to Colchester High School, where he's a senior.

Lloyd says he trained 100 bakers at St-Viateur; 75 are still there.

4:08 a.m.

The shop has been open for eight minutes.

Everyone is working quickly before the morning rush.

4:09 a.m.

The second batch of dough goes in the mixer.

4:16 a.m.

The ready bagels are tossed into a long metal tray called the chute.

Lloyd organizes them.

4:34 a.m.

Matt ensures the boiled bagels are fully covered. The honey in the water helps make everything stick.

4:58 a.m.

The first customers arrive, tired and hungry.

5:06 a.m.

Lloyd moves to the station where his team slices bagels headed for bags. He explains that each bagel has to be cut with a knife because the hand-rolling process results in varying shapes unfit for a standard slicer.

There were three main jobs at St-Viateur, he says: bagging, rolling and baking. Myer had told Lloyd that as he worked his way up, he'd make more money. Lloyd retold this story, laughing, because he learned that the increased pay didn't come from a better hourly rate, but from the longer hours required: baggers worked 20, rollers worked 40 and bakers worked 75.

5:18 a.m.

Batch two is ready for rolling.

There are five ingredients in the dough:

King Arthur's Sir Lancelot High-Gluten Flour

Malted Barley Flour

Sugar

Water

Yeast

Lloyd estimates that 3,000 to 4,000 pounds of King Arthur flour and 400 pounds of Green Mountain Creamery cream cheese are consumed during an average week.

5:30 a.m.

Lloyd finally sits down for breakfast: a plain bagel with lox, scallion cream cheese and tomatoes. He washes it down with a Natalie's orange juice and is done by 5:35 a.m. It's the only non-bathroom break he takes during his 8.5 hours in the bakery.

5:38 a.m.

The chute is already littered with seeds beneath the wire baskets. Over the course of the day, three to five pounds of seeds will end up there. They'll be collected and thrown in the fire because they still have oil.

"It flavors the oven," Lloyd says.

5:39 a.m.

He mans the oven, which he built with three friends over five 18-hour days, using 3,700 fire bricks.

He'll occasionally make pizza with his dough, adding crushed tomato, garlic and 15-year-aged provolone, which he'll top with his Montreal spice mix. It's not on the menu, but he'll make it for party-sized orders.

6:36 a.m.

Dough number three is thrown in the mixer.

It's clear that the machine is old: a clamp and bag of flour keep it closed.

6:40 a.m.

A rush of customers begins.

6:47 a.m.

Lloyd rolls with Kyle again.

Matt and Kyle explain how Lloyd can roll a bagel and throw it perfectly into place anywhere across the table, or even into the oven.

6:55 a.m.

Lloyd rolls alone again.

I clock him at roughly a baker's dozen per minute. He says he could get up to 38, if needed, though he's recovering from an eye injury. He's worked with people who could do 40 to 45, no problem.

7:32 a.m.

Matt calls out, "Fresh rosemary!"

Two customers grin and peer over to see the bagels lobbed into the chute.

The bagels are flipped and flung using a long wooden paddle called a shebah. The spelling of this word varies. When asked why it's called a shebah, Lloyd says, "That's what he called it."

"He" means Myer.

Lloyd used to buy the paddles in Montreal, but now commissions them from Sterling Furniture Works across the street. They start as blonde, unvarnished wood. Over time, they develop a dark patina in the oven, the far edge turning black.

7:36 a.m.

Kyle asks Lloyd, "How's it going?"

Lloyd replies, "Living the dream."

He always responds, "Living the dream" or "Rolling in the dough," Kyle says.

They both laugh.

7:50 a.m.

The rolling continues. Lloyd estimates they've made 110 dozen bagels thus far.

They bake between 250 and 300 dozen on an average day, he says, which is 3,000 to 3,600 bagels for those of us who don't think in dozens.

8:08 a.m.

One burnt bagel comes out of the oven. It goes into the fire next to the seeds.

Lloyd says Myer couldn't stand seeing anything wasted because of his time in the Holocaust. According to the St-Viateur website, Myer once spoke to a high school class and said, “At Buchenwald, all I dreamt of was a piece of bread.”

8:10 a.m.

Kyle leaves, but before he does, out of earshot of Lloyd, he says, "He's a really awesome boss."

8:16 a.m.

Lloyd takes the last sip of his gas station coffee, over six hours after he bought it.

A group of visiting Austrians, who stopped by the day before, say hi. One takes a picture, and Lloyd gives her a free bagel.

8:20 a.m.

Lloyd hands a bag to someone from a local non-profit. He estimates that on an average week, he donates 100 dozen to local charities, including the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts and Resource's YouthBuild.

8:23 a.m.

A police officer arrives for breakfast.

8:24 a.m.

There's a line, and the tables are full.

Lloyd won't tell you, but Myer's has been named best bagel shop in Vermont by Epicurious, among others.

Why? It could be because people love Lloyd; he prefers phone orders to web orders because he likes talking to his customers and seeing how they're doing. It could be because he learned from Myer Lewkowicz, one of the Montreal-style originators. It could be because St-Viateur has greatly expanded its bagel production while Myer's is still only made in one bakery, one batch at a time.

It could be all three.

8:34 a.m.

The third batch of dough is ready. Lloyd cuts into it and it looks like a sushi chef cutting into a side of tuna.

8:50 a.m.

An ex-Montrealer, who now owns a business in Winooski, greets Lloyd in French. Lloyd later says that the man, Marcel, was his first-ever customer in 1996.

9:00 a.m.

A group of people watch Lloyd roll his bagels. I ask what it's like to always be watched.

He says, "I like to talk to people."

9:05 a.m.

Trisha Ubermuth, 25, stands on a milk crate to organize the bagels.

In the past, Lloyd has told the story that she once came in as a child and declared she'd work there one day. It's not true, but Lloyd tells me that bagels are, in fact, a family business.

His sister, mother and nephew still work at St-Viateur. His daughter works for his cousin who runs his own bagel shop, Brossard Bagel, just outside of Montreal.

9:07 a.m.

Lloyd gives a free, hot poppy seed bagel to Marcel, knowing it's his favorite.

9:31 a.m.

The rush slows. Everyone works at the same pace.

10:31 a.m.

Lloyd finally leaves, but he's not done. Ahead of him, he's got over four hours of driving through Northern Vermont with seven bagel drop-offs on the way. He doesn't dread it though, it's a pretty drive. And, "I love getting out and meeting people."

He's got another bagel in-hand for lunch. "My car is covered in sesame seeds," he says.

7:15 p.m.

He finally gets home after only stopping for a break at Piecasso in Stowe.

He's used to long drives.

When he first opened Myer's in 1996, he commuted from Montreal, leaving at midnight every "morning." He got his green card in 1997. After three years of the 100-mile commute, and a car accident caused by sleeping at the wheel, he moved to Vermont.

He then worked 15-hour days, seven days a week for seven years.

"I've never worked less than 65 hours a week," he says.

He's barely gotten outside of Vermont and Montreal because of the schedule. Now, fortunately, he gets a day off on the weekend. He's recently been to both Connecticut and Boston.

He hopes one day to retire in Nova Scotia.

But, first, he's going to open a new take-and-bake bagel business with his friend Sid Berkson in Enosburg Falls.

And, he's still got a bakery to run.

9:30 p.m.

He drinks chamomile tea and falls asleep, again, to hockey.

The next morning, he wakes up without an alarm at 1:15 a.m. It's Saturday, and there will be twice as many customers. He looks forward to meeting them.

Contact Evan Weiss at 802-660-1854 or eweiss@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @eaweiss.