Support & marketing
You get the founders.Not a call center.
Ugly Bagel was built by two operators who ran hotel food and beverage for two decades before they rolled a bagel — and they are the ones on your weekly call. The recipes, equipment, digital ordering stack, menu boards and marketing calendar are already built. Your job is to hire well, run a clean shop, and take care of your city.
The development path
From signature to opening day
Weekly calls start the day you sign
From the moment the agreement is signed, you get a standing weekly call with the founders to work the development process in order — financing first, then real estate, then pre-development. Nothing is handed to a portal and forgotten.
Real estate, reviewed with you
You work with a local broker in your market; we work the site with you on the weekly call. Maps, demographics, trade-area fit, the dos and don'ts of a good bagel site, and an honest read on whether the deal makes sense on a cost basis before you sign a lease.
Design, permitting and build-out
Our architect of record — a design and engineering firm in Franklin, Tennessee — draws your space, supports permitting and guides the project through the local approval process, and guides interior selections so every choice you make is already brand-approved.
Optional construction management
We have a construction manager in-house who has built every one of our shops. You can hire that service through the FDD: standard AIA budget forms, bid packages you collect and we verify, and a weekly build update walking you through each sign-off.
Two weeks of training in Nashville
Training runs in our offices and in our shops. You bake, you build cream cheese, you work shifts in every role — including Bagel Concierge — and you ride the early-morning delivery run to see how the day really starts.
Grand opening
Opening budget guidance is in the FDD. Run it yourself against our minimum standards and best practices, or hire our team to manage it — PR, decor, giveaways, collateral, social posts and digital ads.
Training
You learn it in a real shop, not a slide deck
Two weeks in Nashville across our company shops and our offices — hands-on production first, business classroom second.
- 1
Three shops, three models
You train in a downtown production shop, in a Full Model with a commissary kitchen and retail storefront, and in a shop that operates with no kitchen at all — so you see how each format runs before you pick yours.
- 2
9.5 classroom hours + 34 hands-on hours
HR, payroll, how to actually run the business, how to read a profit-and-loss statement (P&L), what food cost is and where it moves. Our operations manual is broken down into working sessions rather than a binder handed over at the door.
- 3
A week on the bench with the chef
Our co-founder personally spends a week with new bakers on the dough process. No baking background required — we have hired people with none and had them producing inside a week.
- 4
Hiring for effort, not resumes
Crew are trained to be themselves. Effort, energy and spreading joy are the three non-negotiables — everything else is teachable, and the shop is designed so it can be taught fast.
Technology
The system is already built
You are not the beta test. The ordering stack, the boards, the point-of-sale and the equipment spec are configured before you unlock your doors.
- 01
100% digital ordering, already built
Every order starts digital: in-shop kiosks, our own app, our website, and third-party delivery. There is no cashier stand to staff, and the ordering stack is configured for you before you open.
- 02
Menus controlled from corporate
Digital menu boards, the in-shop social screen and in-shop music are all standard equipment and managed centrally, so pricing, new items and monthly drops appear in your shop without you touching a design file.
- 03
One point-of-sale, no debate
The point-of-sale platform and the ordering overlay are mandated across the system — one set of numbers, one integration list, and a market-specific page built for your location.
- 04
Customer data you can actually use
Ordering runs through our own channels, so you can see who your repeat guests are and how often they come back — not just a daily sales total.
- 05
Recommended, not red tape
Outside the mandated systems we give strong recommendations for things like scheduling and payroll instead of forcing them. Fewer mandates, fewer fights, faster setup.
- 06
Equipment that removes the guesswork
A pre-programmed water doser hits the exact volume and temperature the recipe calls for. Fresh dough, barley malt, high-gluten flour, a 12–18 hour cold ferment, and hand-rolling on wooden boards meet new-world technology so the process is hard to get wrong.
Marketing
Proven at HQ, then handed to the system
Paid digital ahead of your opening
Our approach is digital-first. Paid ads and retargeting start roughly three months before a shop opens so the brand is already in local feeds by the time the doors do.
Grand opening, done for you or done with you
Choose our team to run the opening end to end, or run it yourself against our standards. Either way, a minimum pre-opening digital spend is required and managed through our in-house marketing team or our social partner.
Monthly Drops arrive built
Each month's limited flavor is developed, tested and merchandised at HQ — recipes, boards and creative — then released system-wide. It is our new-customer acquisition engine, and you get it without inventing anything.
The brand stays the brand
National social handles are owned and run centrally so the brand does not get watered down shop by shop. You get a local Facebook page and the creative comes to you.
Proven before it is distributed
Campaigns are tested in our own company shops first. What works gets packaged and pushed to the system; what does not gets killed before it costs you money.
A service model, not a script
The Bagel Concierge position — someone standing within a few feet of the kiosk to read the room and walk guests through their first order — is trained, staffed and measured. It is the reason a digital shop still feels like hospitality.
Early on purpose
Access you lose once a brand gets big
The people who wrote the recipes, designed the shops, built the digital ordering model and opened all three company locations are the same people on your weekly call. You are not routed to a franchise business consultant who has never rolled a bagel.
We are also honest about what we want from you. Owners who chase the last point of margin by cutting service, staffing and quality are the wrong fit. The experience is what keeps guests coming back, and it is what the system is built to protect.
See the full support model
Download the Franchise Investor Magazine for the training schedule, the development timeline, and the marketing detail.
Download Own the Ugly.
