A bagel shop is only as good as its people. I can develop the perfect sourdough recipe, Jen can create the perfect cream cheese program, and we can design the most efficient kitchen layout in the world — but none of it matters without the team that shows up before dawn every single day and executes with care, precision, and genuine passion. These are the people behind your bagel. I want you to know them.
Maria Gonzalez — Head Baker, Trophy Club
Maria was one of our first two hires when we opened the Trophy Club flagship, and she has been with us ever since. She arrives at 3:30 AM — thirty minutes before anyone else — because she likes to have the kitchen to herself for the first mix of the day. Maria came to us from a commercial bakery where she’d spent six years running a production line. She was good at her job but bored by it. “It was the same bread, the same process, the same everything, every day,” she told me. “There was no craft.”
At Dan’s, Maria found the craft. She took to the sourdough process immediately — the precision of the fermentation, the hand-shaping, the attention to the starter’s behavior. She can tell by the smell of the dough whether the fermentation is on track. She can feel, with her hands, when the gluten network has reached the right stage of development. After four years, her shaping technique is faster and more consistent than mine. I will deny saying that if asked.
Favorite bagel: Everything, toasted, with scallion cream cheese. “It’s the only way to start the day.”
James Park — Front-of-House Manager, Fort Worth
James runs the front counter at our Fort Worth location with the kind of calm efficiency that makes a morning rush feel manageable instead of chaotic. He came to us from the restaurant industry — eight years at various DFW restaurants, working his way up from busser to server to floor manager. He was burning out on the evening grind. “I was working until midnight five nights a week,” he says. “My kids were asleep when I got home and at school when I woke up. I was making a living but missing a life.”
James saw our job posting and applied the same day. The morning hours were the initial draw, but what kept him was the community. “At a restaurant, you see a customer once or twice and they’re gone. Here, I see the same faces every week. I know their orders, their kids’ names, their jobs. We’re not serving customers — we’re serving neighbors.” He coaches his daughter’s soccer team on weekday afternoons. He says that alone was worth the career change.
Favorite bagel: Asiago, not toasted, with veggie cream cheese. “Trust me. The Asiago does not need toasting.”
Sarah Chen — Sourdough Specialist, Grapevine
Sarah is our in-house fermentation expert. She has a food science degree from Texas A&M and worked in a test kitchen before joining Dan’s Bagels. Her title is unofficial — we call her the Sourdough Specialist because nobody understands our starter better than she does. She monitors the pH levels, the microbial activity, the fermentation curves. She can predict, within a 30-minute window, when a batch of dough will hit its optimal fermentation point based on the ambient temperature and the starter’s activity level that morning.
Sarah is the person I call when something is off — a batch that is slightly more sour than usual, or a dough that is fermenting faster than expected. She diagnoses the issue, adjusts the process, and documents the solution. She has built an internal reference guide for our franchise partners that covers every fermentation scenario we have encountered. “Sourdough is alive,” she likes to say. “You have to listen to it. Most people try to control it. I just try to understand it.”
Favorite bagel: Plain, not toasted, plain cream cheese. “I want to taste the fermentation. Nothing else.”
Marcus Williams — Morning Shift Lead, Trophy Club
Marcus is the person who keeps the Trophy Club morning shift running on time. He manages the flow from oven to display, coordinates with the front counter, and handles the real-time production decisions that determine whether we sell out at 12:30 or 1:15. He joined us as a general kitchen worker two years ago and earned the shift lead position through sheer reliability and an almost supernatural sense of timing.
Before Dan’s, Marcus was working overnight shifts at a distribution warehouse. The hours were destroying his sleep schedule and his health. “The 4 AM start was actually later than what I was used to,” he laughs. “And I’m done by noon. For the first time in years, I have a normal life.” Marcus is also the person most likely to give you a hard time if you ask for a bagel that is not on the menu. He says it with a smile. You still do not get the off-menu bagel.
Favorite bagel: Jalapeno Cheddar, toasted, with plain cream cheese. “The heat from the jalapeño, the richness of the cheese, and the tang from the sourdough — it’s the perfect trio.”
Jen Hilbert — Co-Founder & Everything Else
I have written about Jen elsewhere, but she deserves mention here because the team cannot be understood without understanding her role. Jen is the person who built the systems that make every location function. The ordering protocols. The training materials. The sourcing relationships. The customer experience standards. The brand voice. The operational playbook. If I am the person who makes the bagels, Jen is the person who makes the business.
What the team sees, and what I want you to know, is that Jen treats every employee the way she treats family. She remembers birthdays. She asks about their kids. She shows up at their kids’ school events. When Maria’s mother was hospitalized last year, Jen rearranged the production schedule so Maria could take a week off without worrying about income. That is the kind of leader she is, and that is the kind of culture she has built.
Favorite cream cheese: Cinnamon Brown Sugar. “On a warm French Toast bagel, it is legitimately life-changing. I created a monster.”
The Bigger Picture
We have over fifty team members across four locations now, and every one of them has a story. The college student working mornings so she can attend afternoon classes. The retired teacher who wanted a part-time job that kept her connected to the community. The former line cook who was tired of the dinner grind and found that early mornings suited him better than late nights. The high school kid working his first job, learning what it means to show up, work hard, and take pride in a product.
“A bagel shop is only as good as its people. I can make the perfect recipe, but it is the team that shows up at 4 AM and executes with care every single day that makes Dan’s Bagels what it is.”
These are the people behind your bagel. They wake up early. They work hard. They care about what they make. And every time you walk through our doors and the team greets you by name and your order is exactly right — that is them. I want you to know them. They deserve it.
Interested in joining the Dan’s Bagels team? We are always looking for great people.
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