Lauded Starship Bagel expands to new Dallas address

Starship’s newest bagels-and-schmear shop opens in Far North Dallas on Friday, April 12, 2024.

It’s the latest in a wave of bagel shops in Dallas-Fort Worth. That puts some perspective on a sentence I wrote just five years ago: “When it comes to the latest food trend in Dallas, bagels don’t make the cut.” Happily, that’s no longer true in 2024.

Starship Bagel’s new storefront at Hillcrest and Arapaho roads brings bagels to the north-of-LBJ Dallas neighborhood where owner Oren Salomon grew up. He used walk to this address as a middle-school student. You ready for an awesome ‘90s throwback? It was a Blockbuster Video.

Hillcrest Village shopping center in Far North Dallas has been through years of construction and facelifts. Soon, a Ka Thai restaurant will open nearby.

Salomon’s bagel story started in Lewisville, where the kitchen continues to make all the bagels for his shops in Lewisville, downtown Dallas, and now, Far North Dallas. Interestingly, Salomon’s first idea for a bagel shop was in this Hillcrest and Arapaho shopping center. He raised the money to open, then gave it all back.

Starship instead started in Salomon’s father’s closed diner in Lewisville, a safer bet in uncertain times during COVID-19. Today, Salomon is back to his original plan.

The menu in Far North Dallas is the same as it is at the other Starship Bagel shops: mostly bagels and schmear, but with some breakfast and lunch sandwiches “just because people asked for them,” the owner said.

Salomon is most proud of the plain bagel, which won Best Bagel in a taste-test at BagelFest in New York in October 2023. He likes it with fermented jalapeño cream cheese. Other bagel flavors include everything, poppy seed, sesame seed and za’atar. Schmears include green olive, garden veggie, honey almond, lox and more.

The singular Bagel in the name Starship Bagel is part of the shop’s identity. “We think the bagel is the perfect thing,” Salomon said. Although the team will make bagel sandwiches with smoked salmon, sliced cucumbers and the like, Salomon said the one goal is “to make the best bagel I could.”

You won’t find bacon, egg and cheese bagel sandwiches here, even though customers might want them.

When he opened in Lewisville, Salomon said, “the number of people who walked out was higher than the number of people who ordered.” Now that North Texans have more bagel options — and now that more out-of-towners are moving in — Salomon said customers have come to terms with Starship’s bagel-obsessed point of view.

All of the Starship Bagel shops will be closed for eight days for Passover, the Jewish holiday that starts on April 22, 2024. Salomon said it’s important to him to take a break.

“Passover is the reason I love bread so much,” he said. “I don’t eat bread for eight days. And for eight days, I dream about bread.”

Starship Bagel is at 6859 Arapaho Road (in Hillcrest Village), Dallas. It opens April 12, 2024. All shops will be closed this year from April 22, 2024 to April 30, 2024.

Other Starship Bagels are at 1108 W. Main St., Lewisville and 1520 Elm St., Dallas.

For more food news, follow Sarah Blaskovich on X (formerly Twitter) at @sblaskovich.