KANSAS CITY, MO — No matter the specialty, it’s not uncommon for bakers to work odd hours to ensure bakery cases are filled by the time the shop opens.
For Jeremy Motley, the overnight baker at Starship Bagel in Lewisville, TX, it’s less an early wake-up call and more a bagel-making all-nighter. Single-handedly, he churns out hundreds of bagels for the bakery’s three storefronts and various wholesale accounts, all before most people hit snooze in the morning.
Jack of all trades
Jeremy hasn’t always been the primary baker. When he first joined the shop two and a half years ago, he worked in the front-of-house, waiting for a baking position to open up.
“I’ve done it all,” Jeremy said. “I started on the sandwich station, and to help out, I did bagel packing, barista, cashier, bagging, delivery; whatever needed doing, I’d do.”
Jeremy’s no stranger to baking. Backed by years of experience in the food industry, his first foray into the baking sector was nearly a decade ago at a national bagel chain. Though learning how to make artisan bagels the Starship way was a new challenge.
“I baked at other places, but none of that experience transferred,” he shared. “This is a very different style. When I started working here, baking was a clean slate; it was all new to me.”
In July 2024, Jeremy transitioned from being the bakery’s utility player into the baking department. He went all in on learning the method.
On an average day, Jeremy arrives at the flagship shop and baking hub — affectionately known as the Mothership — around midnight, setting up the kettle, oven and toppings, with some background music to boot. He boils, tops and bakes hundreds of bagels until about 5 or 6 a.m., ducking out before the shop opens at 7.
Starship Bagel took home the Best Bagel prize at BagelFest 2025 in November. Jeremy played a vital role in the bakery’s big win, crafting the entries in Texas, which were then blast frozen, shipped to New York and baked off the day of the competition. As a result of the recognition, Jeremy and the dough and baking teams have had to step up the output. Prior to the win, the team was producing about 12,000 bagels a week. After, it jumped nearly twofold, requiring the Starship bakers to make nearly 2,000 bagels before 8 a.m. daily to keep up with increased demand.
“I really don’t know what happened this year, it’s crazy,” he said. “My first fear was that we wouldn’t be able to keep up, but we’re doing much better than expected.”
Setting the (bagel) bar
As Starship’s primary bagel baker, Jeremy holds himself not only to the bakery’s quality standards but also his own, even in the face of higher traffic than ever before.
“I refuse to dip my quality to meet demand,” he said. “There are just things you’ve got to figure out, like, ‘How could I make four times more bagels in the same amount of time?’ We made it work.”
Part of this high standard of quality is what made him hesitant to adopt the par-baking technique Starship’s founder Oren Salomon learned about during the 2025 International Baking Industry Exposition. While against it at first, taking a bite of that bagel fresh from the oven ahead of BagelFest changed Jeremy’s perspective.
“I cried because the bagel was that good,” he said. “I was like, ‘This is a better bagel. There’s no way around it.’ Everything I thought I knew about dough and baking bagels was gone … It’s an otherworldly bagel. Once we roll them out at the other stores, it’s going to be mind-blowing.”
A few years into his role with this Texas bakery, he’s found his groove — and love — for bagel making, always learning and finding new ways to improve on the process.
“Being able to make an actual, honest-to-God bagel — and not only a bagel, but one of, if not the best, bagel in the entire world — is astronomically amazing,” Jeremy said. “Some people don’t like going to work, but I love it; I can’t wait to come in here.”
That late-night labor of love is what keeps Starship’s cases stocked with award-winning bagels … and the midnight baker wouldn’t have it any other way.
This story has been adapted from the January | Q1 2026 Craft to Crumb mini-mag. Read the full digital issue here.
