major bagel drama
Buzzy Heights bagel shop rebrands after founding baker’s surprise exit
Brazos Bagel will resume selling at markets and other local businesses.
Plans to open a new bagel shop in the Heights have taken an unexpected turn. After only a few days in business, Zac Wilson, owner of Brazos Bagel, has parted ways with his business partners, who are moving forward without him as Space City Bagels.
As CultureMap reported last week, Wilson brought his Brazos Bagel pop-up to a permanent shop at 2155 Durham Dr. Heights-area residents, deprived of a local bagel option since Golden Bagel closed in 2021, flocked to Brazos Bagel, prompting it to sell out of bagels more quickly than expected.
Wilson tells CultureMap he was delighted by the neighborhood’s enthusiasm for his bagels. Although he says Brazos tripled its daily output compared to what it made before the shop opened, they couldn’t make enough bagels to meet his partner’s requirements. Both parties quickly realized they had different expectations regarding daily output and decided to end the partnership.
Wilson revealed the decision on social media Tuesday night.
“They wanted to see more volume coming out of my side of the team,” he says. “We couldn’t scale up fast enough for them . . . We made a decision to part ways.”
Robert Martinez, a commercial real estate broker and business consultant, tells CultureMap he and his business partner already had plans to open a bagel shop called Space City Bagels at the Durham Dr. location when they met Wilson. They chose to partner with his existing Brazos Bagel brand due to its acclaim and strong social media presence.
Unfortunately, even in the soft opening, it became clear that Wilson’s bagel making methods would not be compatible with the demands of a busy shop. Tasked with producing 60 dozen bagels per day, Martinez says Wilson and his team produced fewer than 40 dozen. While he respects Wilson’s commitment to quality, he also wants to meet the community’s demand.
“This is a business. I believe food is passion. I live and breathe it,” Martinez says. “You also have to create jobs and make money for it to stay open. If you run out at 10 am on a Saturday, that’s difficult.”
Wilson’s departure means that Martinez and the shop’s investor will return to their original plan and operate the space as Space City Bagels. The shop will be closed for a few days to redecorate with vintage Astros memorabilia and items that pay homage to Houston’s status as the home of NASA. In addition, Martinez says he’s secured a commercial kitchen where a new bagel maker will work until he can build a kitchen on site.
When it opens, Space City Bagels will sell both bagels with schmears as well as a selection of up to 10 bagel sandwiches that Martinez has created. For example, he plans to serve a muffaletta sandwich on a bagel with olive tapenade and cream cheese spread, mortadella, salami, ham, and provolone.
“The goal is about the bagel, but it’s also about what you can produce from the bagel. It’s a service for the community. That’s the goal,” he says.
As for Wilson, he wants to take a week or so off to spend a little time with his family. He’ll be back soon at Brazos’s regular outposts that include coffee shops Antidote and Black Hole; modern general store Henderson & Kane; Kojack’s, a cafe in Lazybrook/Timbergrove; The Groves Marketplace; and the Fall Creek Farmers Market in Humble. He’s proud of his team for tripling their output and feels optimistic about the future of Brazos Bagel.
“I want to continue to try to support other businesses with our bagels and vice versa,” Wilson says. “The entire bagel shop model. I don’t feel like we’re ready for that, per se. I do think that is in the future. At this very moment, we want to go back to the fundamentals of lets make sure we’re making really great bagels.”
