A new bagel shop is coming to downtown Austin, with plans to bring an old-school New York tradition to one of the city’s busiest waterfront corridors. According to public filings, ICONYC Bagels is set to open at 202 W. Cesar Chavez St., across from Lady Bird Lake.
What Now Austin spoke with Brian O’Neill, a founding team member representing ownership group ICONYC Foods and said the opening is targeted for late November or December.
For its menu development, the team brought in Robert Goldberg, a third-generation bagel maker from New York’s well-known Goldberg family, to guide the recipes and methods behind the bagels, which will be baked fresh daily, seven days a week.
That same emphasis on craft is reflected in how O’Neill describes what makes a bagel worth eating. “It has to be made fresh daily,” he said. “It has to follow the old methods and recipes that made bagels something people love.”
The site selection reflects a similar calculation. “It’s downtown. There’s tons of access to the space,” O’Neill said. “We’ll have plenty of Monday-through-Friday business, and then on the weekends everybody’s on the lake, and it’s easy access to get to the shop.” It’s a two-audience bet that many downtown food concepts have embraced as the area around Lady Bird Lake continues to attract both office workers and recreational visitors.
O’Neill also said the team is looking forward to becoming part of the community. “We’re coming, and we’re very excited to open and be able to serve the people of Austin,” he told What Now Austin.
For now, franchising isn’t part of the conversation. “The first thing is to get open and make the best bagels in Austin. If that were to happen, then the future is wide open for us,” O’Neill said.
