When Ameira Olayan and Fadia Anani decided to open a coffee shop together, they set out to create something different. Bagelology is the brainchild of two friends who wanted to run a successful business by day and be home with their kids at night.
Before becoming coffee shop owners, Ameira was a nurse and Fadia was an educator with a catering business on the side. At one point, Ameira made a social media post about her dream of opening a coffee shop, and Fadia reached out. The rest was history. The duo attended our 3-Day Coffee Business Master Class®, conducted market research, and developed the bagel brand of North Texas.
How the Right Hours and Delegation Can Offer Work-Life Balance
To some small business owners, work-life balance might sound like a myth. If you’re not able to follow a schedule or offload important tasks to trusted staff, you can end up feeling like you live at your business.
But not for these two. Ameira and Fadia set a shared goal early on to create a schedule that respected their family time. Since July 2022, Bagelology has been open from 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., allowing Ameira and Fadia to be home by afternoon. They’re closed on Mondays. A typical day for them both can involve a little of everything—making drinks, cooking, baking, and running social media. But their time spent behind the bar or in the kitchen has lessened, thanks to their skilled staff.
The team includes two bakers, front-of-house staff, and back-of-house staff who clearly know their roles and are also able to fill in for one another. Ameira and Fadia learned how to balance both being involved in the business, and empowering your team. They also hone in on employees’ strengths to help them grow. For example, one employee is going to school to be a pastry chef, so she’s taken on responsibilities in that area. Another employee is interested in management, so she’s being nurtured to hopefully become the general manager someday. And one employee’s family owns a bakery, which led to a delicious new addition to the menu.
Thanks to this positive work culture, the friends-turned-business-owners have time to use their complementary skills to keep things running smoothly. Ameira uses her past experience adhering to nursing protocols to create structure for the business as it grows. And Fadia thinks in the big picture, taking initiative and finding new opportunities.
“We’ve both grown so much,” Fadia says. “We’ve had to step out of our comfort zone.”
These Texas Coffee School Lesson Helped Them Create a Business That Runs Itself
Ameira and Fadia built Bagelology on a strong foundation that began at Texas Coffee School. “The wealth of knowledge that we gained from [Texas Coffee School] helped us from day one,” they told us. Thanks to a step-by-step plan of action, the retail coffee business they created is strong enough to run itself.
Check out these key lessons they learned.
Choose the Right Location
In the classroom, we spend time discussing the factors of an ideal location. Your first business may not have every single factor—that’s what your second and third locations are for!—but you can find just the right combination to bring customers in the door.
Ameira and Fadia used the 240+ page binder they received from Texas Coffee School. They considered street traffic, proximity to the highway, and nearby businesses before landing on their current location in Frisco, Texas. “That information in [the binder] was gold,” Ameira says.
The highly-trafficked area they selected attracts the customers they need, especially in the morning. And the duo is already dreaming of their next location!
Create a Unique Business Concept
We tell our students that in the coffee market, especially in more coffee shop saturated cities, you have to offer something people can’t find on every corner.
Ameira and Fadia knew they wanted to create a hybrid coffee shop model, which combines coffee drinks with another source of revenue. This type of model can increase both your number of transactions and the value of each transaction. “We wanted to add everything,” they say with a laugh. “Coffee plus something.”
Once the idea of bagels was born, the two went to the bagel mecca for three weeks of training—New York and New Jersey. Upon building out Bagelology, they wanted to mimic East Coast bagel shops, which are typically grab and go. The business has just a few tables inside and outside. But it’s very family friendly.
Today, coffee makes up 1/3 of sales, and their trendy, delicious bagels are a huge hit. Kids are crazy about their fun bagel shapes like the “Bagel Bear.” And parents have a fun place to chit chat while en route to the next destination.
Start Marketing in the Community
A major takeaway from Texas Coffee School for Fadia in particular was how to make your business stand out through marketing. Bagelology attracts customers in two main ways: social media and community engagement.
Fadia admits that managing their social media account is time-consuming. But she says customers like the personal touch with the owners. They post behind-the-scenes content and fun videos with personality and humor, like on Instagram.
Bagelology connects with local schools and nonprofits. They offer senior discounts on Tuesdays to the retirement community residents across the street. They were even selected as one of only two recipients of the FC Dallas 2024 Homegrown Partner Program—which means their logo is plastered across the stadium!
Bagelology delivers bagels to healthcare workers.
Work Smarter, Not Harder, Like Bagelology by Starting at Texas Coffee School
There are many lessons for small business owners to learn that can be time-consuming and costly. But our team has combined our decades of experience in coffee to save you time and money along the way. In our 3-Day Coffee Business Master Class®, you’ll learn from experts how to create a business plan, select equipment, brew excellent drinks, and so much more. As Fadia says, “We went in there thinking we were just going to learn how to make coffee…but it was a lot more than that.”
Sign up for a class today!
