How Hey Bagel Became Seattle’s Most Viral Bagel | Eater Seattle

"He built a successful bagel business once before and walked away from it; that earlier shop opened its first location in South Lake Union in 2020 and later expanded to Capitol Hill (2021) and Redmond (2022). The project grew out of a personal obsession: after getting fired in 2016 and wanting work that combined craft and commerce, he remembered, “I had a bagel from somebody and I thought at the time, ‘This is a pretty neat bagel. Nobody’s making bagels. I don’t want to keep working for anybody else,’” and began teaching himself the trade. Baking became “like a fetish,” he says: “I watched YouTube videos and I was like, ‘I want to do that that way and I want to do that that way.’” His artistic temperament informed the work — “It’s like working with clay,” he says. “It’s like pulling it out of the kiln. Is it this magic moment? Is it doing what you wanted it to do? And if it isn’t, is it something you can manipulate?” — and he drew on a childhood sense of craft (his father was “obsessed with finding the perfect croissant” — “He never found it but was always searching,” and his mother, a painter, often baked). Running a growing, multilocation business was difficult; “I don’t think people would describe me as happy,” he says of those early managerial days. “I put a lot of pressure on every bagel that went out and every interaction.” Two former employees described his “perfectionist” nature while noting that other staff sometimes interpreted conflicts as “aggressive” and “insensitive.” A buyout by Ethan Stowell Restaurants in early 2023 ended his operational role; he says he’s grateful for the partnership but now refrains from naming the business, referring to it as “my old place” and “my last company,” and is bothered by recent critics saying the quality is “medium or poor.” He later filed a lawsuit last September over $100,000 owed as part of his separation arrangement with ESR; the matter was quickly settled." - Sean Keeley