Bagel News

Artisanal authentic New York-style bagel shop rises in downtown Dallas

Starship bagel sandwiches on sesame seed and poppyseed bagels.

Paul Arturo Torres

Downtown Dallas is due to get some authentic, artisanal bagels: Starship Bagel, an old-school bagel shop that serves New York-style bagels, specialty shmears, lox, and coffee, will open a shop at 1520 Elm St., along Stone Street Gardens, with a front-row view of The Eye sculpture.

Owner-founder Oren Salomon says he's hoping to be open and rolling out bagels in early 2023.

Salomon debuted Starship in 2021, when he opened the first location in Lewisville, doing New York-style bagels made in small batches with the most premium ingredients, in classic varieties such as Plain, Sesame, Poppyseed, Everything, Garlic, Salt, and Zaatar.

Starship features lox from Brooklyn-based Acme Smoked Fish Corp and a quartet of cream cheese shmears: plain, garden veggie, lox, and fermented jalapeno.

A perfect plain bagel by Starship Bagel.Paul Arturo Torres

With the exception of their egg bagel, all bagels are vegan, and they make their own vegan shmears, which have developed a big following at the Lewisville original. Their coffee is from Onyx Coffee Lab, a top-rated roaster based in Arkansas.

Salomon is a young entrepreneur with a true passion for making great bagels who developed his authentic recipe in which the dough is made from scratch, boiled, and baked fresh daily.

Since opening, Starship has not only been selling bagels from the shop, but also has an extensive delivery program in which freshly made bagels are delivered to 15 cafes across Dallas-Fort Worth including Merit Coffee, Fiction Coffee, Lemma Coffee, and Staycation in Richardson.

Even better, they do home deliveries, as in delivery to your front door, on Saturdays and Sundays (which you can order here, assuming you're in the delivery zone).

"One of the good things about bagels is that they're very portable," Salomon says. "A fresh bagel can last at least 6-8 hours."

The downtown Dallas shop is going into the old Cafe Strada space, primarily a walk-up counter with outdoor seating spread across the patio. Salomon says that Downtown Dallas Inc. helped facilitate the deal and provided tables and chairs as part of their ongoing commitment to improving downtown public spaces.

It'll feature the same menu as Lewisville, with bagels and a few sandwiches such as lox & cream cheese, or cucumber with tomato, sprouts, red onion, and avocado.

"We don't do crazy sandwich concoctions — our menu is designed around getting you to taste the bagels," he says.

"Bagels demand a high foot-traffic walk-up culture, and downtown Dallas is the best neighborhood in DFW to match the tone of bagels," he says. "I also like the idea of tempting New Yorkers staying at the Joule who might not be able to resist my New York-style bagels."

downtown trends openings

Market News

Small specialty grocer in Celina is a go-to for imported foods

Di Mantzios Greek & Italian Gourmet Market

There's a gourmet shop in downtown Celina offering imported European foods: Called Di Mantzio’s Greek and Italian Gourmet Market, it's a small grocery and cafe at 204 E. Pecan St., Ste. C, where it's bringing in goods you might not find elsewhere in town.

Owner Vasilios Mantzios is a native of Greece and former NATO military serviceman who moved to the U.S. in 2008. Missing the foods he'd enjoyed in Greece and Italy, he started a booth at the Frisco Fresh Market in 2015 selling olive oils, Balsamic dressing, olives, and Mediterranean salt. In late 2024, he made the move to open the storefront in Celina (coincidentally down Pecan Street from Mangiamo Italian Market & Deli, another highly personal deli and market, making pecan Street a fun destination for a foodie field trip).

Di Mantzio's carries olive oils, pizza, cheese, charcuterie boards, flour, refrigerated meals, and meatballs with a Greek red sauce, made from a family recipe from Mantzios' aunts and their grandmothers. He also imports marinated lamb and beef meatballs from Greece.

"I only have things that I would put on my table to personally eat — I pick out my items by the quality because I don't want people to have issues with the food," Mantzios says. "I have my mother test everything, so if you pass her, you're in the store."

While he does offer Greek foods such as a recent special with beef kebabs and pita bread, there's a big demand for Italian items. He has a big selection of cheese: parmigiano reggiano, feta, mozzarella, and cheese from Il Forteto. Dry goods include Molino Paolo Mariani Manitaly flour, Caputo gluten-free flour, and Hellenic Farms and Lia extra virgin olive oil.

Mantzios prioritizes small, family-owned businesses because they enjoy what they're providing to customers and value quality.

Di Mantzios Greek & Italian Gourmet MarketDi Mantzios

On the prepared food front, he does pizza using a wood-fired crust imported from Pizza Food Love in Italy, delivered to the shop every three weeks. The base can be topped with ingredients from Tuscany, Italy for a truly authentic experience. More prepared foods are one of the biggest requests he gets from customers, and it's a category he's continuing to expand, as well as adding wine and beer.

They also have cakes and desserts such as cannoli, baklava, Greek rice pudding, French macarons, and gelato from Gelatys.

The interior is neatly organized, with refrigerated foods as well as Greek and European decor such as pestle and mortar, a gladiator helmet, and Greek and Italian flags pinned to the walls.

Mantzios thrives from the personal contact he gets with customers, and they find him equally charming as well.

"The bulk of my customers come from Prosper and Celina, and Celina is the number one growing city with people coming from all around who can appreciate what we are doing," Mantzios says.

supermarkets openings