Many people had their routines disrupted over the last year during the COVID-19 pandemic. But there is one New Jersey native now living in Manhattan who was not going to let the pandemic or geography deprive him of his favorite New Jersey delicacy – ShopRite Bran Flakes.

Dan Gutman loves the ShopRIte cereal. But the problem is that he moved to New York City a few years ago, and there are no ShopRites there. He would often stock up on the item when he made frequent trips to the Garden State to see friends and family.

“Better than Whole Foods,” he says.

But the pandemic ended those trips. So in December, with a snowstorm bearing down, the author of well-known children’s books found himself in a quandary.

“I was down to my last box and I needed Bran Flakes badly,” he says.

Thus began an epic journey for breakfast cereal. Gutman got on his bike and rode 9 miles through Manhattan, across the George Washington Bridge, to the ShopRite in Palisades Park where he scored the last four boxes on the shelf.

“I didn’t think it was such a big deal, but when I posted on Facebook, people said, ‘What are you crazy? You drove over the George Washington Bridge for Bran Flakes? You’re nuts,’” Gutman says. “It is just 8 miles door to door from my apartment.”

Gutman hasn’t had to make the trip again. The Ravitz family who own five ShopRites in southern New Jersey saw Gutman’s account of his trip for Bran Flakes on Facebook and rewarded him with 14 more boxes.

“A case of it. It was just a giant thing of Bran Flakes,” he says.

Gutman says that many other people have found themselves doing some unusual things during the pandemic, mostly because people were motivated to just get out of their homes.

He now has eight of those 14 boxes left.