Update on June 18, 2020: Shug’s Bagels is temporarily closed after an oven malfunction. Follow @sblaskovich on Twitter for updates on when the already-popular bagel shop will reopen.
Even before Shug’s Bagels started selling kettle-boiled bagels near SMU in University Park, customers were mad.
They were mad because they thought they’d missed the news that Shug’s was finally open on Mockingbird Lane near 75. Occasionally, a line would form outside the building after co-owner Justin Shugrue would post on Instagram that he was giving away freebies while testing the oven.
So here’s the news, and don’t be mad: Shug’s is now, finally, open. The official date is Saturday, June 13, but customers might be able to grab an everything bagel or a breakfast sandwich now if they haven’t sold out.
“It really has been shocking how strong the demand is for this product,” Shugrue says. “People have been constantly knocking on the door.” During our interview, three people popped in to ask if they could buy bagels.
Shugrue is a New York native who came to Dallas to attend Southern Methodist University. He found a city lacking in bagel options. Shugrue grew up eating “a bacon, egg and cheese on a roll,” a breakfast order he remembers so fondly — and says so quickly — it sounds like a single word.
He calls himself “a bagel lover, not a bagel baker,” but that all changed when he decided to open a bagel shop in the former Lover’s Egg Roll near SMU.
To help with the menu, Shugrue recently partnered with Preston Paine, former chef de partie at Eleven Madison Park in New York who was furloughed because of the coronavirus. Eleven Madison Park is a three-Michelin-starred restaurant named the No. 1 restaurant in the world in 2017 by The Worlds 50 Best Restaurants. Paine is lending his chef’s skills to Shug’s — and he’s making some beautiful breakfast sandwiches in a decidedly more casual setting.
“After living in New York for two years and being born and raised in Dallas, I knew there weren’t good bagels here,” Paine says.
Joe Nilsen, another co-owner, moved from New York to Dallas to help open the shop.
Shug’s bagels are kettle boiled for 15 seconds — a process Shugrue says is essential to get the right chew. The bagels are then baked in an oven with six revolving racks. How long? Shugrue shrugs, saying it’s more about feel than timing: “It’s like juggling,” he says: Boil the bagels, top them generously with seasoning, toss 50 on an oven rack, repeat. On a typical Saturday, Shugrue says his staff will make 2,400 bagels.
Bagel geeks might want to know that Shug’s is not bringing in New York water to make its bagels. Shugrue explains in a Dallas Morning News interview in August 2019: “If Elon Musk can put a Tesla Roadster into space, I can make bagels with Texas water.”
Bagels and whipped cream cheese are the foundation of the shop. But breakfast sandwiches are bound to be popular, too, like the Shug: bacon, egg, cheese and a hash brown served on a roll. A chicken-pesto-mozzarella sandwich and a pizza bagel made the menu, too.
To mirror the bagel shops of Shugrue’s youth, the Dallas restaurant looks like a convenience store, with Yoo-hoo, Fanta and dozens of other drinks in the refrigerated case. There’s Altoids, Advil and lighters near the register, and there’s even Pedialyte, if hungover college kids stop in.
Coffee options are limited to brewed coffee and cold brew from local shop Drip Coffee Company. (Anyone who wants a fancier option can try the Starbucks a few doors down.) Shugrue wants his namesake restaurant to be very casual.
Customers will be asked to stay 6 feet apart and will find designated places marked on the floor where they can stand. Employees wear masks and gloves.
“Transitioning to a coronavirus world was really easy: It’s always been grab 'n go," Shugrue says. “That’s how people eat bagels anyway.”
Shug’s Bagels is at 3020 Mockingbird Lane, Dallas. Hours, for now, are 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Correction at 3 p.m. June 11, 2020: This story previously said the bagels are boiled for 15 minutes. That would make a bad bagel. It should have said Shug’s bagels are boiled for 15 seconds.
For more food news follow Sarah Blaskovich on Twitter at @sblaskovich.
