Crestline Bagel marks 25 years

Running the popular

It was August 1996 when Chesapeake Bagel, a franchise in a national chain, opened a shop in Crestline Village.

The place was later renamed Crestline Bagel by the second owner.

Now — under current owners Ralph and Jennifer Yarbrough — Crestline Bagel is celebrating its 25th anniversary.

The Yarbroughs, who purchased the business in 2007, were recently honored with a ribbon cutting at the shop attended by Mayor Stewart Welch III and other local officials.

And despite the recent challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and some supply chain problems, the couple still enjoy running Crestline Bagel and dishing out New York-style bagels, sandwiches, wraps and other items.

“It’s been one of the best things we’ve ever done; it really connects us to the community,” Ralph Yarbrough said. “It gives us a lot of pride knowing that people enjoy what we’re doing.”

“We have made so many friends over the years,” Jennifer Yarbrough said, referring to their regular customers and co-workers.

The couple now have three retail locations, their own kitchen and a large catering operation.

Crestline Bagel also provides Jennifer Yarbrough with “a great creative outlet,” she said.

“It’s been fun to create new recipes, to be creative in the kitchen,” she said.

The couple, who were married in 2002, live in Mountain Brook in the Cherokee Bend area. They have two boys — Yates, age 11, and Houston, age 14.

Jennifer Yarbrough graduated from Auburn University in 2000 with a degree in European history.

She worked at the bagel shop in 2001 as an assistant manager for about six months before getting a sales job at another company, but her time at the shop made an impression on her.

“She developed this concept for what it could be,” Ralph Yarbrough said.

At the time, the shop served only bagels and cream cheese and didn’t serve good coffee, he said.

“I saw the potential to really add to the offerings and improve the coffee program,” Jennifer Yarbrough said, citing such examples as espresso, signature sandwiches and a pastry case.

The Yarbroughs made numerous attempts to buy the shop for about five years before the owner agreed to sell it to them in November 2007.

They bought the place despite the fact  neither had an extensive background in the service industry.

However, food was a big part of Jennifer Yarbrough’s upbringing.

“I grew up cooking and baking,” she said. “My mother is a wonderful cook.”

In addition, she knew the business from working there as a manager, Ralph Yarbrough said.

“And Jennifer just has a knack for creating recipes that are good but are also commercially viable,” he said.

After the couple bought the business, Jennifer Yarbrough handled most of the operations.

Ralph Yarbrough became more involved in 2011.

“We started working on growing the business,” he said. “We had always catered, but when I came on board, we started doing more catering and selling to grocery stores.”

In 2017, Crestline Bagel opened a second location in Cahaba Heights.

That neighborhood is growing, and it’s close enough that a lot of the people in the area already know Crestline Bagel,” Ralph Yarbrough said.

“We feel like it was an underserved area for us,” he said.

After opening the second location, the Yarbroughs ceased to sell their bread and other products wholesale to groceries or restaurants.

“We could not keep up with production at our own stores,” Ralph Yarbrough said.

Seeking a presence in downtown Birmingham, the couple opened a location at Innovation Depot.

The business incubator “is an exciting place,” Ralph Yarbrough said. “We feel like there is a lot of change happening in the Switch District.”

The location also made sense from an operational standpoint.

“We were able to have a retail location alongside our production facility,” Ralph Yarbrough said. “That really appealed to us.”

Despite its success, there are challenges in running Crestline Bagel.

The kitchen operates seven days a week and 24 hours per day “because our dough and bagels are made all night to get them ready for the next day,” Ralph Yarbrough said.

“You are always on,” Jennifer Yarbrough said. “‘But we are really lucky to have so many great employees who share the burden.”

In addition, the couple often struggle to get the raw ingredients they need and at a good price.

“Because we make everything from scratch we are always dealing with the commodities market,” Jennifer Yarbrough said.

COVID-19 has also disrupted supply chains, she said.

But overall, the couple believe that — working together — they have found a recipe for entrepreneurial success.

“We have tried to take her knack for baking and cooking and apply my business background to that,” Ralph Yarbrough said. “I think that our strengths complement each other.”

And the culinary learning never stops for Jennifer Yarbrough.

“I’ve learned from other people we’ve hired along the way and taken lots of classes and training,” she said. “We have manufacturers reps work with us.”

Like a lot of other businesses, they also adapted to and learned from COVID-19.

Before COVID-19, the shop didn’t take phone orders because they didn’t want to lose focus on serving the customers in the store.

“When COVID-19 started, we took call-in orders and almost immediately did an online ordering system,” Ralph Yarbrough said. “Then a few months ago we launched the Crestline Bagel app.”

The pandemic “has allowed us to grow in some ways I had not expected to grow,” Jennifer Yarbrough said, citing the app and delivery for individual orders.

You can try to plan your growth, but that growth can come from “unexpected things,” she said.

“I am interested to see what the next chapter holds,” she said.

For more information, go to crestlinebagel.com.