A small alligator entered a North Carolina bagel shop before officers safely relocated it. The surprise visit came amid official warnings about increasing coastal encounters.Alligator crawls into bagel shop in US, customer prepares to fight it with a chair (Photos: @LorrieAnn25/X)A small alligator made an unexpected appearance at a bagel shop in North Carolina, casually walking in through the back entrance and making its way through the stockroom to the front counter, leaving employees and customers startled.According to a report by The Guardian, the unusual visitor was spotted at Bagel Dock Express in Southport last Thursday.
Surveillance footage shared by the business showed the roughly three-foot-long reptile wandering through the shop, while one customer appeared to prepare to defend himself with a chair.Watch the video here:Oh this is just some of the joys of living on the east coast of North Carolina. This is in Southport which is right next to Oak Island, the closest town over where we have to go for everything.
A 3 ft alligator decided to make himself at home. Don't leave your doors open!
We have had alligators in the Walmart parking lot, in the Bank drive-thru, the middle of 211, the road connecting Southport and Oak Island, and now the bagel shop. There are a few that live on the golf course and a few that live at the wastewater treatment plant in the pond.
And one right at the end of our road in a drainage ditch.— MAGA Lorrie Ann AMERICA FIRST (@LorrieAnn25) October 30, 2026Shop owner Jesse Driscoll told a local news outlet that he had been installing a new oven when the alligator entered the premises. He described the encounter as something he would never have expected at a bagel shop. “You can see lots of things.
People coming in. Friends coming in to say hi.
But never in a million years did I think I'd see an alligator,” Driscoll said, according to The Guardian.The reptile, believed to be an American alligator, was safely removed by Southport police officers and an animal protective services officer. The police department later confirmed the rescue in a social media post, saying the animal had been captured and relocated.
The shop also made light of the unexpected visit, joking online that “apparently, word of our fresh bagels has made its way into the swamp!”The incident comes amid warnings from North Carolina's Wildlife Resources Commission about increasing encounters between people and alligators in coastal areas. Earlier this year, the agency urged residents and visitors not to feed or interact with the reptiles.The commission said its wildlife helpline had been receiving several calls a day as public encounters increased during the alligator mating season.
Although the bagel shop incident happened outside that period, officials said sightings and interactions with alligators were becoming more frequent along the coast.Wildlife management district biologist John Henry Harrelson warned that feeding the animals could make them associate humans with food.“People feeding alligators ultimately leads to those animals seeing humans as a potential source for food,” he said, as quoted by The Guardian. He added that while alligators were naturally shy, repeated feeding could cause them to lose their fear of people and increase the risk of dangerous encounters.To help prevent such incidents, the commission developed GatorWise, a set of guidelines for people living in or visiting areas where alligators may be present.The advice includes assuming alligators could be nearby, never feeding them, avoiding throwing food or fish scraps into water, and not attempting to approach, capture or handle the animals.It also urges people to keep an eye on children and pets and remain alert whenever they are in or around water.- Ends