Growing up, Justin Shugrue's order was an onion bagel from Lenny's in Rye Brook. Then he left Westchester for school in Dallas, and the order had nowhere to go. While attending SMU, he dreamed up the plans for a bagel shop. And so, Shug's was born on Mockingbird Lane in 2020, a short walk from the campus where the idea was formed

The bagels are made the way he remembered. Kettle-boiled, seasoned on both sides, the first batch in before sunrise. New York method, Texas water. But the bagel was only part of why people kept coming back. It was the second visit, when someone behind the counter already knew the order. By the third, Shug's made Dallas feel a little more like home. A neighborhood got the shop it didn't know it needed.