A 3-foot alligator wandered into Bagel Dock Express in Southport, North Carolina, on Oct. 29, prompting owner Jesse Driscoll to back away and call 911 while surveillance video captured the encounter, Fox News reported.
Driscoll told WWAY News he had been distracted by workers installing a new oven when the reptile slipped through an open back door and moved through the kitchen toward the front counter. “It’s just so far out of the ordinary for a bagel shop,” he said to the station.
The business was closed to customers at the time, and the Southport Police Department confirmed in a Facebook post that officers worked alongside Animal Protective Services Officer Ward to capture and relocate the alligator. The shop reported no injuries.
Bagel Dock Express posted about the incident on Facebook, joking that its reputation had “made its way into the swamp” and saying the visitor was safely escorted out.
Fox News noted the October encounter was not Southport’s only alligator sighting this year: in April, officers helped remove a 12-foot alligator from a residential property and another alligator was found beneath a car at a bank drive-through.
Jon Ross Myers is the executive editor and publisher of the Mississippi News Network, Mississippi's largest digital only media company. He can be reached at editor@tippahnews.com
