In a city where breakfast tacos and coffee are an early ritual, it takes some nerve to suggest that anything else might deserve a place in Austin's morning rotation.
Enter Shug's Bagels, the Dallas-born bagel shop that recently landed at 1206 Parkway, just west of Lamar Boulevard, and quickly became one of those places that seemed to exist everywhere online before most Austinites had actually eaten there. Its bagels have made the rounds on social media, the lines have followed and, naturally, finding a parking spot has become part of the experience.
But hype is easy. A good bagel is harder.
So, is Shug's actually worth the wait?
Let's start with the obvious: If you're looking for a breakfast spot where you won't run into a Hinge match, a former coworker or the run club you swore you were done with, Shug's may not be your spot.
The shop is catnip for the chronically online and dining-news literate, and the crowds reflect it. On a busy morning, the line can spill outside while cars circle the block in search of a space.
There are ways around it. Shug's opens at 6:30 a.m. every day, and getting there before 8 a.m. is your best bet for beating the rush. Later on weekday mornings can also be calmer. After about 11:30 a.m., the line may have thinned, although you could still find yourself negotiating for parking.
In other words: You can avoid the crowd. You just have to be willing to eat breakfast at an hour when some people are still deciding whether to stay in bed.
This is where Shug's has a legitimate case.
The shop offers the familiar lineup - plain, everything and other classics - alongside sweeter options, including blueberry.
The French toast bagel is the kind of thing that sounds slightly ridiculous until you take a bite. Then the cinnamon fragrance lingers on your lips just long enough to make you reconsider.
The bagels themselves have the dense, chewy character you want from a New York-style bagel, with crisp exteriors and pleasantly elastic interiors. They have enough heft to stand up to Shug's other defining feature: an almost comically generous hand with the cream cheese. Expect a mound.
This is not a delicate schmear. This is cream cheese with something to prove.
Fortunately, the bagel is dense enough to handle it.
The sweet bagels are particularly well suited to the excess. The blueberry bagel with blueberry spread doubles down on the fruit, while the French toast bagel works well with the vanilla walnut spread.
The breakfast menu covers the classics, including The Shug, a hefty combination of bacon, eggs and a hash brown. It is exactly the sort of sandwich that requires two hands and a brief period of acceptance.
But the lox is the one worth making room for.
At $19.50, it sits on the expensive end of the menu, but the combination makes a convincing case for itself.
The capers and onions bring fragrance and bite, the tomatoes add freshness and the salmon keeps the whole thing from becoming an exercise in cream cheese consumption. It is salty, briny, rich and fresh in the way a good lox bagel should be.
This is the sandwich that makes you understand why people are willing to stand in line.
The lunch options are less traditional, but arguably more fun. The pizza bagel tastes like an adult version of the Bagel Bites you might have eaten while babysitting - except now someone has decided those childhood freezer snacks deserve better ingredients.
There's also a Philly cheesesteak and a chopped cheese, giving the shop enough options to blur the line between a bagel shop and a bodega deli.
There's coffee, bottled orange and apple juice and, in a particularly Austin-friendly bit of foresight, Pedialyte. Because sometimes the most important pairing for a bagel is the one you need after the night before.
If you're expecting Shug's to introduce Austin to the concept of a bagel, you may be disappointed. Austinites have had access to good bagels before, and the shop's popularity is driven at least partly by the thrill of being the new thing everyone is talking about.
The parking is annoying. Waiting in line can be worse in the summer heat. But once you get past the hype, there is a genuinely good bagel underneath it.
The bagels have the chew and density to satisfy an East Coast craving, the spreads are generous to a fault and the sandwiches are substantial enough to justify making a trip.
Would I wait in an enormous line for one? Probably not.
Would I get up early and go when the shop is quieter? Absolutely.
And in a city where the breakfast taco reigns supreme, that might be the strongest endorsement a bagel can get.
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This article originally published at Shug's Bagels has drawn lines in Austin. Is it worth the hype?.