LEWISVILLE, TX — The bagel has seen its fair share of evolution. Once solely a Polish-Jewish street food, the boiled-and-baked rings have become a global breakfast and snack staple. Shifting from their original dense format, bagels have transformed into a softer, chewier vehicle for flavor-packed schmears and layered sandwiches. This is thanks, in part, to the commercial and artisan innovations that made them accessible to mass markets.
Amidst its rising popularity, it’s important to remember the bagel’s roots, and this is a task Starship Bagel in Lewisville, TX, doesn’t take lightly. The shop was born from a mission to revive the magic behind a traditional New York bagel, and before Starship even had a name, founder Oren Salomon dug into the product’s history to fully grasp what made a classic bagel so special.
As part of this research, Oren discovered that bakers’ goals for bagels had changed … thus beginning the bread product’s evolution.
“Effectively, what happened is that bagels went from being this niche ethnic food to being food for the entire city,” he said. “There was an influence of deli and bodega culture turning a bagel into sandwich bread, and the goal of the bagel was to use it as a vessel, as opposed to the way I grew up eating it, which was either by itself or drenched in cream cheese.”
This passion for a classic bagel led Oren to make his first homemade batch in 2017, and sharing the product with family and friends kick-started the bagel business. The cottage baker quickly outgrew his home space and needed additional resources, which led him to bake in a local church kitchen and start a bagel delivery pop-up.
Here’s the thing about a baker’s journey … it sits at the intersection of fate and circumstance.
After a series of challenges that led to a two-year hiatus, an opportunity with Emily Winston, founder and CEO of Boichik Bagels in Berkeley, CA, propelled Oren back into the bagel world. That experience paved the way for Starship Bagel to open its flagship location, where it gained a reputation for putting the bagel before the schmears and toppings.
To achieve the ideal crispy exterior and deep, chewy interior traditional bagels are known for, Starship uses Sir Lancelot Hi-Gluten Flour from The King Arthur Baking Co. and ferments the dough for two to three days. While the longer fermentation time could be seen as a hindrance to production capacity and walk-in space, it’s exactly what the dough needs to become a Starship bagel.
Enter a second location
The Lewisville location was a relatively effective launching pad for the business, but it needed a sizable customer base to sustain it. While Starship Bagel serves a small variety of sandwiches, the lineup was designed as dressed-up versions of a classic bagel and schmear.
After repeated requests for items not on the menu, the bakery ultimately found itself at a crossroads. Should Starship keep its menu true to the original vision, or restructure to include more mainstream options?
“I knew the solution lay in higher foot traffic, so I thought, ‘What if I had a satellite location, and I just brought the bagels from Lewisville to it? Could I make that work?’” Oren recalled. “I started asking around and got connected with a landlord of a 200-square-foot shack in downtown Dallas.”
The space ended up being exactly what the bakery needed. The second location officially opened in January 2023, and Starship hit the jackpot.
“We got extremely lucky,” Oren said. “The Dallas location got mobbed by influencers, and within a few weeks, there was an editorial piece that came out in CultureMap that rated us the number one bagel in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.”
For a while, the Dallas location was the primary store in terms of revenue, accounting for 80% of total sales and garnering national attention. Starship was listed on Bon Appetit’s list of top 24 bagels outside New York City. As the only Texas-based bakery on the list, it quickly became known as the best bagel in the Lone Star State. The bakery was then invited to the 2023 New York BagelFest, where it won first place.
The success of the second location and subsequent media coverage catapulted Starship to the point that it was ready for a third location in North Dallas. Throw in a second BagelFest win and a James Beard Award nomination — both in 2025 — and it’s easy to see Starship Bagel has found its groove.
“It’s taken winning national awards to finally get to the point where we have a sustainable business selling mostly just bagels,” Oren said. “I knew this was going to be a long road because carving out a niche is always a challenge. I’m just thankful we’ve connected with a big enough audience now. Slowly but surely, people are coming to appreciate the bagel on the bagel’s terms.”
This story has been adapted from the January | Q1 2026 Craft to Crumb mini-mag. Read the full story in the digital issue here.
