This Oak Cliff Bagel Pop-Up Is Dallas’ Newest Bagel Obsession

While Cliff Bagels in Oak Cliff might be the newest (almost) bagel shop in Dallas, owners Jon and Hayley’s dreams of opening their own shop have been in the making for over seven years.

Years before the pandemic, Hayley Cruz was a trained barista at a local mom-and-pop coffee shop for three years, which sparked her goal of opening a cafe one day.

Dreams of perfected espresso pours switched to bagels when she visited New York and fell in love with the bagel culture, noting that Dallas just didn’t have bagels like NYC (this was circa 2018, before the big Dallas bagel revolution).

When the shop she was working at closed during the pandemic, she felt like she had lost her own business.

She then met Jon Gomez, who was a coworker at a bakery in Arlington. He noted in a podcast with Tony Murillo that Hayley always told him, “One day, I’m gonna open a bagel shop.”

They went from frenemies to best friends to lovers, and now, with her barista training and his baking experience, they’re bringing a years-in-the-making dream to life.

When you don’t have investors or generational wealth backing a first-time entrepreneurial opportunity, passion, and hard work are especially crucial to bring things to fruition.

Jon and Hayley are prime examples of this as they both are still working full-time jobs and getting up as early as 3 a.m. on weekends to get the bagels to the neighborhood (P.S. They will soon launch a Kickstarter for anyone who wants to donate to help them reach their goal). Despite that, they attribute a lot of their growth to the community they’ve grown.

A few weeks ago at a pop-up in Oak Cliff, they set up shop under a tent, so while the menu is small, we know it’s just the beginning. You can get a bagel and schmear for $5, a sandwich for $10 or a box of six bagels for $18. There are plain, everything, jalapeño cheddar and blueberry bagels. For schmear, they’re offering plain, honey nut and strawberry. As of now, we don’t know if these flavors are on rotation, but we think they will be the weekend standard.

Just between our two visits, they added cookies to the menu, so anything is possible. Sooner or later, there will also be coffee offerings.

We tried one of their breakfast sandwiches. If you order one, you have your choice of bagel and protein (bacon or sausage), with an egg and American cheese.

The bagel-making process takes two days and was finished just in time for the pop-up. These all have a distinct homemade quality that other bagel shops don’t nail, and we think you can request to have your bagel toasted.

Over the last two years, they’ve done nearly 100 pop-ups, big and small all across North Texas, major cities and lesser-known towns. The most common denominator? The majority, if not all of them, sell out. Some in just 40 minutes.

Right now, the pop-up is in front of their soon-to-be brick-and-mortar shop across the street from Crecer Hair Salon. Each weekend under the makeshift tent brings them closer to building out the space behind them so they can eventually move in and fill Oak Cliff’s bagel void.

Cliff Bagels, 443 W Davis St., Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. (or sold out)