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Justin Shugrue, a young entrepreneur that opened a bagel shop in Dallas that has been grossing $6M/year, since they opened 3 years ago joins Enterprise Radio.
Listen to host Eric Dye & guest Justin Shugrue discuss the following:
- Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how you got here?
- Sounds like a wild ride, and a fast one. How old is your business now?
- That sounds like a great team; those are hard to build, especially these days! Talk about your team if you would
- I mentioned earlier what your business is grossing earlier– so tell me what you think has been the key to seeing these kind of results?
- Can you tell me a bit about the second location?
Summary: Justin set his goal on opening a NYC style bagel shop in his college town of Dallas where he studied at SMU. During college he focused on making his dream a reality and has worked his way and gained experience in the food and hospitality industry to prepare to open his shop. After a lot of planning and raising investments through friends and family he opened his shop, and it is doing so well, he is opening another location this summer.
Born in Santa Monica, CA and raised in the NY/NJ/CT “tri-state” area from which his parents had originally hailed, Justin operated at full-tilt from an early age. Driven yet balanced, Justin thrived academically while getting into just enough trouble to keep things interesting as well as unwittingly forming his career.
Justin’s brother Ned had attended Dallas’ famed Southern Methodist University (SMU) and Justin followed in his footsteps, being particularly drawn to the beautiful campus, city center location, and strong business school, all portending a future Justin could not yet see.
An equally unforeseen gap semester introduced Justin to the restaurant business when – to fill his time – he began working at The Inn at Pound Ridge, Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s elegant restaurant in the New York City suburbs. The Inn’s seasonal, locavore, down-to-earth cuisine, combined with a convivial, family friendly feel that attracts locals and tourists alike, again presaged Justin’s path. Justin fell in love with the hospitality industry, working any job made available to him, from bussing to waiting tables, from hosting to bartending, forming strong and trusting friendships along the way.
Justin returned to SMU, continued his finance track (including a fin-tech internship in London, and one with Barclay’s in New York City), and graduated with a BA in Finance. All internships are formative, and Justin’s had taught him that his heart lay in hospitality. By graduation, Justin had decided to open a down-to-earth, convivial restaurant of his own: Shug’s Bagels. While at SMU, Justin had missed the classic New York City bodega favorite, “bacon, egg, and cheese on a roll,” as well as New York City bagels, and figured that other students either felt the same, or would happily adopt these Northeastern food traditions.
A cold call to Dallas-based entrepreneur Hunter Pond – who opened his first, restaurant at 24 years of age and now owns 8 restaurant concepts which translate to 18 restaurants across 4 cities – resulted in an initial meeting and a lasting mentoring relationship. Upon graduation, Justin took on a self-styled “bagel internship” at a beloved, privately-owned bagel store on Long Island, working in as many roles as possible: mostly baking, but also working the cold line, hot line, and cash desk. Bootstrap fundraising began that same year, eventually resulting in 22 “friends and family” investors, and by 2020 Shug’s Bagels, located just steps from the SMU campus, was a bricks-and-mortar reality. Justin is eternally grateful to his mom, who co-signed his first major loan using her home as collateral, and uses his finance skills every day as he grows his company.
Justin is a self-described “cardio junkie,” who runs five days per week and frequently completes half-marathons. He also avidly enjoys podcasts, with favorites including NPR’s “How I Built This,” “The Tim Ferriss Show,” “Invest Like the Best with Patrick O’Shaughnessy,” and Reid Hoffman’s “Masters of Scale.” Balanced as always, Justin also loves gaming, especially battle royales (Fortnite is a favorite). He lives in the Knox/Henderson neighborhood of Dallas with his mutt Baxter, who models for Chewy.
Website: https://shugsbagels.com
Instagram: https://instagram.com/shugsbagels
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