Meet Ashley & Seth McIntyre | Co-Owners

We had the good fortune of connecting with Ashley & Seth McIntyre and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Ashley & Seth, what is the most important factor behind your success?
I know this may sound cheesy, but our success is because of each other. Together we motivate one another and keep each other going. It can definitely get hard at times when you just want to take a day break or enjoy a weekend, but we know if we want to succeed we can’t stop. We are always bouncing ideas off of one another and coming up with ways to make our business better than it was the day before.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
My name is Ashley and I am a co-owner of Breakroom Bagels with my husband, Seth. We came up with the idea to start a bagel business when we first moved to the Houston area. We were surprised, with how big Houston was, there weren’t many choices for authentic boiled and baked bagels. We love East Coast style bagels and wanted to create that chewy and dense texture, along with our own style of proofing and rolling. We spent countless hours practicing the boil and bake techniques as well as finding the perfect ingredients for our product. Soon after, our company was created. We spent our first year strictly doing farmers markets and when COVID hit, we shifted to online deliveries that we would do for our customers Saturday mornings. During that time, we also built out our food truck so we could go to multiple locations and expand awareness of our brand. We built out a unique food trailer that did not look like your typical food truck. We wanted it to be aesthetically appealing and inviting.

As far as our challenges, we have had our fair share. When we were working under the Home Cottage Food Law in Texas that allows you to cook your product from home, we quickly realized we wanted to expand into a commercial kitchen to be able to offer more options and be able to grow our business. The Home Cottage Food Law was the perfect was to get our start, but with how quickly we were growing, we needed to have more space and offer a variety of options. (sandwiches, cream cheese, catering, etc.) Under this law, we could only sell our bagels, we were not yet allowed to offer cream cheeses, sandwiches, or sell directly to businesses. Seth and I searched for months trying to convince gas stations, bakeries, and many other types of facilities to allow us to rent our kitchen when they weren’t using it, unfortunately no one wanted to do this. At one time we entertained real estate to build out our own commercial kitchen, but after rent, the build out, and getting it up to code, it go to financially unfeasible for us. Finally we decided to invest in a food truck we could build out and this would not only be our new commercial kitchen, but also something we could take almost anywhere to sell our products. We set up our food truck in Downtown Conroe behind a building called Martins Hall with a coffee cart. This was perfect. We could finally operate the way we wanted, however our need for more kitchen space grew as our food truck business took off, this time we needed a brick and mortar. A couple months into operating the food trailer, we were approached by a couple wanting to partner with us to build out a food hall in Downtown Conroe. We jumped on the opportunity and will be managing MoCo Food Hall as well as operating Breakroom Bagels first brick and mortar location within the food hall.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Fortunate for us, Houston and it’s surrounding area has a plethora of things to do. We would start south of the city and visit Galveston island, head to Kemah to do some boating, and stop by a unique oyster restaurant, Gilhooleys in San Leon. We would then hit up a few breweries in the city and watch some baseball at Minute Maid Stadium. As far as food in the city, we would drive around until we see something we haven’t tried. As we venture closer to home we would have to spend a day on the Waterway shopping, dining, and enjoying the night life. When we do a day in our hometown of Conroe, we would show off Downtown and all the new and upcoming things that are going to happen, like MoCo Food Hall which we are a part of building out.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Everyone who has crossed our path in a positive or negative way deserves a shoutout. Everyday Seth and I make decisions and it may have influenced a critical decision we made in our business somehow or someway. Our biggest fans are of course our parents, family, and friends. We couldn’t have made it without them influencing us in someway in our lives.

Website: www.breakroombagels.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/breakroom_bagels/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/breakroombagels