With $3K + dream: Young couple now makes bagels in Ford dealer's repair dept.
From living in a basement to 5-star reviews and a cult following
You won’t find a big sign for Brazen Bagels, a tiny sandwich shop with a cult following, located inside the parts and service department at Village Ford in Dearborn, Michigan.
On weekday mornings, people line up outside the locked door at 23403 Kean Street waiting for owners Jacob and Megan Anson. Within minutes of opening, customers included a pastor from Grosse Pointe Park, a pharmaceutical rep from Dearborn, engineers from Royal Oak and Waterford, a nurse from Detroit, a mechanic from Romulus.
This is the story of a young couple that felt they were in dead-end jobs, lived in a basement to save their money, came up with a crazy idea, met strangers who helped along the way, scraped together $3,000 and made a dream come true at a car dealership not far from the giant Uniroyal Tire off I-94.
An estimated 10% of their no-frills bagel business comes from car repair customers or car shoppers, while the rest is traffic inspired by great word-of-mouth buzz. New customers have found online raves — one site listed nearly 440 reviews with a 4.8/5.0 star average. Google reflected 110+ reviews with a perfect 5/5 average.
“Something we do every day is create a sense of community,” Megan Anson said. “When we moved to Dearborn, we felt we had to make friends. We didn't have our people. We had to build a community. We prayed about it and now we feed people every day, which is the most purposeful thing you can do.”
She bakes fresh chocolate chip cookies and prepares sandwiches beside two assistants, 18-year-old cousins Nash Alhusaini and Wisam Almurisi, while Jacob boils and bakes more than 120 dozen New York-style bagels each week.
They sell breakfast and lunch sandwiches, fresh coffee and bags of bagels with cream cheese, as well as supply the giant, hand-rolled bagels to local partners including Westborn Market in Dearborn.
Brazen Bagels has loyal foot traffic.
Customers on a recent Tuesday included:
Gina DeLand, the first customer to arrive at 7:35 a.m. for an egg sandwich, said owners of Eastside Bagels in St. Clair Shores tipped the pharmaceutical rep to Brazen last year because it’s close to her house and she stops in frequently.
Maddon Gilliam, a bass player in the Detroit-based rock band “Hey Grace!” and a mechanic at Village Ford, stops by every single day for a warm chocolate chip cookie and chocolate milk. He smiled while opening his milk bottle on a recent Tuesday.
Tim Coulter, a corporate trainer headed to a meeting in Wayne, said, “I don’t even drive a Ford. I drive a Toyota. But the owners are great people. I usually come here for a bacon, cheese, egg bagel. They always have sports on the TV, so I get to catch up on things if I fell asleep.”
Keenan Kurtz and Brody Berry, Ford engineers who worked through the night at the Dearborn Test Track monitoring camera features during changing light conditions, stopped by for breakfast sandwiches.
Jim Burton, Ford service adviser, with a coffee order because he ran out of mushroom coffee at home. (Yes, mushroom coffee is a thing.)
Tom Plut, waiting for an oil change, with his daughter, Olivia, sipping orange juice and eating a bagel. “ The bagels are fantastic. They’re like what you’d find in New York City but they’re tucked away in a Ford dealership in Dearborn.”
Brazen Bagels serves award-winning Kekoa Brew Co. organic coffee owned by a husband and wife, a brain tumor survivor, who began selling out of a mobile coffee trailer. Kekoa runs coffee shops in Woodhaven and Wyandotte.
How it began
It all started because Jacob, 31, started waking up with Megan, 28, before she left at 5:30 a.m. to work at Enterprise rent-a-car at Detroit Metro Airport.
“Every day, I made her really good breakfast sandwiches,” he said. “It was the most important part of my day. She was, like, ‘You should do this. You’re really good at it.’ She has supported me the whole time, never once saying, ‘You’re crazy.’”
Jacob grew up the son of a Ford factory supervisor and former Big Boy district manager in the town of Carleton, Michigan, near Flat Rock.
Megan was adopted at age 11 by her grandparents in Newport, Michigan. They made a living selling manufactured homes.
After attending Airport High School in Carleton, Jacob earned a bachelor of business degree from Northwood University. Megan earned a bachelor of science degree (with honors) from the University of Toledo in Ohio.
“We were living in my mom’s basement at first,” Jacob said. “I was a sales rep for a wheel and tire aftermarket company. I did that for, like, three years. I just got really burnt out on the corporate side of it. So I moved to retail, found myself managing different tire shops. I felt stuck.’”
He was working 50 hours a week but needed time to figure things out. So he walked away from his career and started DoorDash delivery.
Hitting rock bottom
“I was watching a lot of VICE TV food shows when I watched Action Bronson getting a bagel in New York. I thought, ‘I could master baking.’ I feel like I hit rock bottom and I had to start from nothing,” Jacob told me. “I had $300 in my bank account. I was, like, if I can sell three dozen bagels and deliver them every day, that would be $100 and I could survive. Once I had gotten my recipe where I wanted, I stopped DoorDashing entirely and went all-in on selling bagels on Instagram and Facebook.”
He worked from 3:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., baking and delivering up to 10 dozen bagels a day.
He made his first bagel at home in December 2021, the year they married.
Jacob and Megan stopped by the new IceBurg restaurant in his neighborhood and shared his dream. Owner Tariq Hamed and partner at the time, Hussein Beydoun, purchased a dozen bagels on the spot.
In early 2022, IceBurg offered to let Jacob run bagel operations from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. before the burger joint opened. He filled out a credit application, took the cash advance and drove to Indiana with $3,000 cash to purchase a full-size commercial oven to make bagels. Only then did he invest in a 300-lb. Hobart mixer found at a church summer camp. Bagels sold out every day and they split the profit.
“We sold 15,000 bagels from April to January,” Jacob said. “Tariq taught me every single thing from the business side.”
Jacob distributed flyers all over town and gave away bagels to schools and businesses and to pretty much anyone sitting in public that weren’t sold at IceBurg.
Another offer and a miracle
Krista Rains, sales operations manager at Village Ford, said the team was looking for the right fit after the previous cafe operator had to leave for medical reasons. A sales rep first discovered Brazen Bagels and spread the word, she said.
“One of our salespeople brought bagels to our general manager and said, ‘You have to meet this couple. They’re young, trying to start out. I don’t know where they’re going with this but they’re dreaming big,’” Rains said. “We love Megan and Jake.”
In December 2022, Bob Wheat, then--general manager at Village Ford, called up to invite Jacob to stop by the dealership. And then made an offer.
“He shows me the space and says, ‘We’d love to have you,’” Jacob said. “We started on June 1, 2023.”
Before running his own sandwich shop, Jacob took a job at a popular Jewish deli. The owner knew he was taking a chance but said he wanted to try. Jacob said he was fired after a week. “I just couldn’t keep up. But after that, I knew exactly how I wanted to run Brazen 2.0.”
These days, Jacob gets up around 3 or 4 a.m. to start baking. Brazen Bagels opens at 7:30 a.m. and closes at 2 p.m. on weekdays.
Big sellers include the classic Nova Lox, fresh turkey and savory pastrami, egg, and cheese. The veggie bagel sandwich is always a winner with its balsamic drizzle.
Village Ford, which sells new and used cars on one side of the street, has its car repair operation on the other side of the street. Managers treat new car buyers to lunch, or send in service customers for a little something to improve their day.
Village Ford is a huge parts distribution center for Ford dealers, so traffic is consistent. Burton said, “We tell people to come over all the time. They can smell fresh bagels as soon as they walk through the door. People like the whole idea of it.”
Looking ahead with a plan
When getting started, money was tight. Jacob sold his Ford Fusion to support their living costs and keep the pop-up shop going. He started walking to IceBurg. They shared Megan’s Subaru Forester. Now they own a 2000 Subaru Outback, too. No car payments.
“Jake and I are homeowners,” Megan said. “We were cooking at home, making soup from scratch. We stopped all our subscriptions and pretty much sacrificed everything to get this thing off the ground.”
Jacob said, “The first day we opened, I had no money for the cash drawer. We had no change. We just kind of made it work.”
They like that the bagel shop has a “speakeasy” vibe with little signage.
“Everything is rolled the day before. Then it proofs in a cooler, which slows the rising. That’s how you develop that crust. It's boiled before it’s baked,” Jacob said. “I purchased a 40-gallon bagel kettle from the 1990s and had it shipped from Miami. It would be $20,000 if bought new today.”
Note: “Proofing” dough refers to the process of allowing yeast-based dough to rise and fermente before baking.
Bagels require only flour, water, yeast and malt barley. Everything is made from scratch. Up to 70 customers walk into the tiny shop on an average day.
Deepening the connection
Social media is key to the ongoing conversation with customers, Megan said.
Their profile surged after Lebanon was attacked in mid-October 2024 and Brazen Bagels hosted a community fundraiser, donating 100% of all $2,400 in sales for humanitarian aid. Jacob baked from 11 p.m. to 9 a.m. and sold all 40 dozen bagels.
During Ramadan observance in February, Brazen Bagels opened twice a day, adding additional hours, from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m., in support of their large Muslim customer base.
When not working, Jake and Megan go to the gym and hang out with their dogs. Parenthood isn’t part of the plan.
“Jake an I live within our means,” Megan said. “We’re set up for retirement. We have a Roth IRA, life insurance. We did all that.”
These days, Jacob said, the family is proud.
They worried in the beginning, Jacob said. “They paid for my education I quit without telling them and said I’m just going to make bagels. It was kind of a secret. I just had to show them.”
Editor’s note: Shifting Gears purchased $30 worth of cookies, bagels and cream cheese to sample. Having eaten bagels in New York City, all over the U.S. and Europe, these are my favorite. They’re dense and crunchy and delicious. Highly recommend to visitors staying at the newly renovated (insanely gorgeous) Dearborn Inn.
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You found the type of enterprise news feature the local dailies value -- a human interest heartwarmer with business lessons as a bonus. Kudos on community awareness, hustle and sharp storytelling again, Phoebe.
I had never heard of having a restaurant inside a repair/dealership business before. Thanks for the great story about an enterprising couple. Especially liked the community angle about their customers and promotion.
I liked the last image the best (yum).