Home-based bagel business could get storefront in Charlotte

CHARLOTTE - Chris Murray has developed his own rhythm in the kitchen.

On a recent Thursday afternoon he worked quickly, moving between the counter and stovetop in his Charlotte home. The smell wafting out of the small kitchen is familiar — flour and yeast, water and salt combine and bake in the oven, becoming plump bagels.

Murray grabbed golf-ball size pieces of dough from a line on the counter and spun them in his hand, creating a hole in the center.

A few minutes later he snatched a tray of finished bagels from his oven and set them out to cool, before transferring boiled bagels from a pan of water on the stovetop to another tray so they could finish in the oven.

In about five hours time, Murray will make 30 batches of bagels, a total of 240. Later that same day they’re packaged and sold, usually in under a half hour, at the couple’s farm stand on Lansing Road.

The small, home-baking business, dubbed Crusty's Bagels by Murray and his wife Lindsay, has been operating for less than year.

It began on a whim and took off in Charlotte almost immediately. Now it's poised to grow.

Later this year they hope to open a storefront in a building in the 200 block of North Cochran Avenue, next door to a floral shop and beauty salon taking up space there. 

You might see Crusty's Bagels on the menu at a local coffee shop soon too, they said, and on store shelves in the area after that.

Their plans are a far cry from the "little hobby" side business the Murrays started and has everything to do with recipes Chris Murray has been perfecting for four years, Lindsay said.

“As soon as people eat them it’s just over," she said.

'...they all came back'

Last month Chris Murray, 30, quit the job he's had for 12 years as a merchandiser with Coca-Cola, and started baking full-time.

But it was a new mixer that launched their budding home-baking business. A really big mixer.

The new appliance, a birthday gift, replaced the five-quart Kitchen Aid mixer Chris Murray had been experimenting with at home. He made everything from cinnamon rolls, bread, pizza dough and bagels.

The six-and-a-half quart mixer had a higher wattage, allowing Chris Murray to make six times the amount of bagel dough he'd been able to mix with his old one, and that amounted to a lot more bagels. Forty eight, the first time he used the mixer, to be exact.

So the couple gave most of them away to friends and family, who came back requesting more.

Lindsay Murray recognized the potential for a business, but she had to convince Chris.

“He’s always said, ‘I should have a bakery,’ and I’ve always said, ‘You should,’ but you know it’s something that always went back and forth," she said. "This time I was like, ‘You know Chris, our family and friends all like them. Let’s see what strangers think. That’s the ultimate test.’”

In February Lindsay Murray offered more bagels to her friends and family on her personal Facebook page. The couple got a few orders within a day of the post, quickly followed by 25 more.

“Once they tried them, then they all came back,” sje said. “Then they told their friends.”’

Hopeful, the couple started Crusty’s Bagels as a business in February.

“We figured we’d sell a few and it’d be this cute little hobby,” Chris Murray said.

He was wrong.

On any given weekday Crusty's Bagels farm stand on Lansing Road offers bagged bagels in five different varieties – plain, salted, sesame, everything and pretzel. Sometimes they sell out in under 10 minutes.

Dawn Hundt's family doesn't buy bagels at the grocery store anymore. They are loyal Crusty's Bagels customers.

"They taste better," Hundt said. "They have more flavor. They're soft. I don't know what Chris does that's so different, but I won't buy store bagels anymore. I only buy his."

Lindsay's mother, Tammy Bush said the couple has thrown everything into the business. Their success hasn't surprised her.

“I’ve been very impressed with them,” Bush said. “They’ve always had a super good work ethic, and they haven’t taken any short cuts.”

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Chris Murray said he makes bagels the authentic way, boiling and then baking them.

You can steam them instead, he said, and it’s faster, but it's not how “purists” do it.

“They laugh at a steamed bagel,” he said. “It’s a roll with a hole. It’s not a bagel, and I subscribe to that.”

When he bakes his bagels, he manages pots of water where the dough boils, and the oven where each batch finishes.

The recipes he uses were developed through trial and error.

“I don’t follow recipes very well,” Chris Murray said. “They’re more inspiration. They’re a suggestion of how you should probably make something."

The Murrays attribute the demand, in part, to a growing desire for homemade food.

“I think people just crave it,” Chris Murray said.

“There’s no added junk in this,” Lindsay Murray said. “You can eat a bagel and not feel bad about it."

Without a storefront the Murray's operation is at capacity, Lindsay Murray said. They simply don't have any more room in their own kitchen for more than 240 freshly-baked bagels a day.

If city officials approve a zoning change at 200 N. Cochran Ave. Crusty's Bagels will put down roots close to downtown Charlotte.

Bush’s floral business, Charlotte Plaza Floral, has been at the location for nine years. Bush and her husband own the building, a former library just across from the 1885 Eaton County Courthouse.

There’s room inside for her daughter and son-in-law’s bagel business, Bush said. Wednesday she said she planned to submit a rezoning request for the property from office to local business district within the next week.

Chris said the couple would bake off site, in a commercial kitchen. They’re looking to rent one locally, he said.

That would allow for more production and wholesale orders too.

“We look at it and think, ‘This was nothing. We’ve made something,'" ChrisMurray said. "I don’t know how big, but hopefully it’s huge.”

Contact Reporter Rachel Greco at rgreco@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @GrecoatLSJ.

Learn more about Crusty's Bagels

Visit Crusty's Bagels' Facebook page by searching "Crusty's Bagels." The business can be reached at (517) 652-1460 offers five different varieties of bagels, including plain, salted, sesame, everything and pretzel. 

The home-based business sets up shop at a farm stand located at 1495 Lansing Road in Charlotte several days a week. Watch their Facebook page for dates and times. 

Plain, salted, and sesame bagels are $6 eight. Everything and pretzel bagels are $7 for eight.