There's a new bagel shop opening in North Dallas from a bagel-savvy team. The shop is called K&L Bagels, and it'll reside at 11930 Preston Rd #110, in the sought-after Market at Preston Forest shopping center at the northeast corner of Forest Lane, where it will open on February 14.

K&L Bagels is from husband-and-wife Kyriakos and Lisa Kouzoukas, who've owned numerous bagel shops around DFW including Bagel Cafe 21 in Richardson and Bagel Fresh Deli in The Colony. Their most recent bagel foray was Bagel Cafe in McKinney, which they opened in April, before selling it to another owner in September.

The couple have been in the bagel business since 1999, when they began operating doughnut and bagel shops in the Boston area before moving to Dallas in 2018 to care for family members — arriving just as a major bagel boom began to hit Dallas-Fort Worth in recent years.

Kyriakos says it has not been their plan to be serial bagel shop openers, but just a result of various outside circumstances.

"With Bagel 21, we'd worked hard and were ready for some time off, and there was someone very interested in buying it, so it was really just timing," he says. "I used to own a bunch of shops in the Northeast — I've been around the block a few times."

When the space at Preston-Forest opened, it was an opportunity they could not resist. "When we came across this, in a neighborhood so receptive, we said this is something we cannot refuse," he says. "We're happy to be here, and we've already gotten a warm reception."

The space they're taking was home to a tailor who'd been there for more than 30 years — "since the beginning of time," Kyriakos quips. "It took a bit of doing to turn it into a bagel shop, and it's not a big space, but it's doable."

They'll recreate the same formula they've used at other shops: mixing the dough the day before, refrigerating it overnight, then boiling and baking bagels every day, sandwiches for breakfast and lunch.

They're not just a bagel shop, but more of a casual breakfast-and-lunch cafe where bagels take center stage. In addition to a 19 varieties of bagels and 10 cream cheese spreads, their menu includes eggs, muffins, and sandwiches like a chicken salad club on choice of bagel, sourdough, or wheat bread. They're probably most famous for their rainbow-colored bagels, which Kyriakos says they won't offer when they open but may offer down the road.

"A bagel is finicky," he says. "You've got to really know the dough, and the only way to get to know it is by doing it for so long. You can go in one day, and the next day it's something different. It's never exactly the same."