Sclafani's Bagels has closed the doors on its Southern Methodist University campus location after a two-year run inside the Cox School of Business, ending an experiment that brought the scratch-made New York-style bagel shop to the Hilltop in 2024. Co-owner Reilee Williams confirmed that founder Christopher Sclafani has retired from operating the SMU outpost, though the brand's original Preston Center flagship remains open and unaffected by the closure.
A Two-Year Run Comes to a Close
According to Chron, Sclafani's opened its second location inside the Cox School of Business in 2024, serving students and staff exclusively as it operated within the university's dining framework. The shop had replaced Einstein Bros. Bagels inside the Truman and Anita Arnold Commons, a central gathering space built as part of the Cox School's $140 million David B. Miller Business Quadrangle project, according to SMU Cox School of Business. Chron reports that Sclafani's flagship team was unable to assume the SMU contract because of the timing of the closure, and that SMU Dining is now preparing to introduce a new concept in the former Sclafani's space, with the university saying more details will be shared soon.
In a statement relayed to the outlet, Sclafani's team said they were grateful to the SMU community and wished Chris well, adding they hoped SMU students, faculty and staff would have a wonderful school year ahead. The company's ownership formally ended operations on the SMU campus, closing out a run that began as part of a broader fall 2024 push by the university to bring local Dallas food brands to campus — an initiative that also included the Japanese tea cafe La Maison Bleue at Lawyer's Inn, according to The Daily Campus.
Scratch Baking Meets Campus Constraints
Sclafani's bagels are water-boiled and made from scratch, a process that requires overnight proofing and early-morning shifts that can begin between 2 and 4 a.m. daily, the student paper's reporting notes. In prior comments to The Daily Campus, Sclafani said that while academic breaks made a campus location appealing, operating under university oversight limited how much control the business had over hours and menu offerings — a tension that runs through much of the friction independent restaurant owners face when partnering with college dining programs. Retail dining venues on SMU's campus are folded into the university's broader dining infrastructure, accepting student Flex dollars and offering automated delivery through Starship Technologies via the Grubhub app, per Southern Methodist University.
Sclafani's roots run deeper than its two Dallas addresses. Founder Chris Sclafani's family has been baking bread for more than 100 years, tracing back to Italian bread bakers in New York's Little Italy, with bagel-making entering the family tradition after his father remarried into a Jewish family in the 1970s, according to CultureMap Dallas. That lineage still anchors the brand's flagship at 6135 Luther Lane in University Park, which opened in January 2022 in the former home of Gather Kitchen and has grown into a high-volume operation producing roughly 2,000 bagels a day.
A Crowded Bagel Moment in North Texas
The SMU closure lands at a moment of intensifying competition in North Texas's bagel scene. Local rival Starship Bagel took home “Best Bagel” honors at New York's international BagelFest in late 2025, a win Hoodline previously reported underscored the region's rising bar for bagel quality. Morning dining across North Texas has kept expanding into 2026, with East Coast import PopUp Bagels landing in Dallas and Frisco-based Bagelology opening in Coppell, adding to a wave of new competitors even as Sclafani's steps back from its campus footprint.
