Our story
That's the ugliest damnbagel I've ever seen
Two hotel guys spent a year chasing the perfect bagel. What finally came out of the kettle looked terrible and tasted incredible — so they named the company after it. Everything Ugly Bagel is today grew out of that one honest reaction.
The founders
Two operators, twenty years of hospitality
Jeff Crabiel
Co-founder & CEO
Raised in a small Michigan town by two teachers, Jeff landed in Orlando hotels in his early twenties and fell hard for hospitality. Recruited to Nashville roughly 15 years ago, he rose to general manager and then chief hospitality officer of a family office's hotel group — and still describes the person taking out the trash as every bit as important as the GM.
"When I studied quick service, I realized it was one of the most soulless pieces of food and beverage in the industry. It doesn't need to be that way."
Jake Strang
Co-Founder & Chief Culinary Officer
From a small town outside Buffalo to culinary school in Miami at 17, then six years at Pinehurst working up from line cook to sous chef, then a run of Nashville openings — the Schermerhorn, the Hutton, and the Westin, where he met Jeff. He owns the dough, the flavors, the supply chain, and the training.
"If the plain bagel and the everything bagel aren't solid, it doesn't matter what fun flavor we put next to them. People won't come back."
The timeline
How it actually happened
The layoff that changed everything
Running hotels in Nashville, Jeff Crabiel had to lay off roughly 385 people - one at a time, face to face, because he believed they should hear it from him. He came out the other side certain he wanted to build something of his own, in a category that stays open when the world closes.
Why quick service, and why bagels
Studying the post-2020 landscape, the steakhouses and cafes were shuttering while quick service was booming. Jeff's read: QSR was profitable and almost entirely soulless. His wife Haley, from the DC area, asked the obvious question - what about bagels? Nashville didn't have a great one.
A year in a home kitchen
Jeff pulled Jake Strang, the executive chef he'd opened a hotel with, into the back hallway and asked if he could make bagels. "I can figure it out." Jake spent more than a year tweaking batch after batch - barley malt, high-gluten flour, and a slow cold ferment - until the plain bagel was right, because if the plain bagel isn't right, nothing else matters.
The ugliest bagel he'd ever seen
Jake walked into Jeff's office grinning and set down a lumpy, oblong thing on a napkin. Jeff looked at it and said it was the ugliest bagel he'd ever seen in his life. Then he tasted it - the best bagel of his life. They laughed, and they had a name.
Farmers markets to first shop
Bagels sold at Nashville farmers markets and in a hotel cafe, where they became the number one selling item inside a week. In November 2024 the first shop opened in downtown Nashville's arcade. Two more followed - a Full Model with a commissary kitchen and retail storefront, and a shop that runs with no kitchen at all.
Built to be franchised
Instead of running two or three shops, the founders built corporate-grade systems from day one - construction, branding, operations, digital ordering - so franchise owners inherit a professional system rather than a mom-and-pop workaround.
The turning point
We proved our ugly point
Jeff has carried the same instinct since childhood: the more someone says something cannot be done, the more determined he becomes to find a way. Building Ugly Bagel turned that lifelong drive into a business with a clear point to prove.
The goal was never simply to open a few shops. It was to build a hospitality brand with the systems, ambition, and staying power to grow well beyond Nashville. That mindset attracted an experienced development partner and gave the company early access to finance, marketing, and construction leadership.
What we believe
What we built the brand on
Nobody's perfect, and that's the point
Our brand isn't perfect, our bagels aren't perfect, and our bagel fam isn't perfect. Misshapen bagels don't get thrown away - they get sold, because they taste exactly the same. That one decision cuts food waste and takes the fear out of a brand-new crew member's first week.
Old-world process, new-world technology
Fresh, never-frozen dough made with barley malt and high-gluten flour, cold-fermented for 12–18 hours, then hand-rolled, boiled, and baked. A pre-programmed water doser hits the exact volume and temperature every time, so the recipe can't be missed by a first-week baker.
Hospitality was the whole reason
Ordering is 100% digital, but the Bagel Concierge stands three to five feet from the kiosk reading the room. Other brands use kiosks to cut labor. We used them to free our people up to walk over and say hello.
Effort. Energy. Joy.
Three non-negotiables for every crew member - and nothing about a resume. You don't have to be perfect to fit in at Ugly Bagel. Everybody belongs.
The mascot
A name with a smile hidden in it
Every brand Jeff admired had a memorable name with a message tucked inside it. Look at the logo and you'll find the smile. Monthly Drops — limited-run flavors that live for one month and then disappear — carry that same energy: bagels people talk about, built from seasonality, hometown memories, and a list of 150 flavor ideas the founders and their wives brainstormed around a kitchen table.
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