When Pop’s Went Dark, Wharton Felt It

On a cold Thursday morning, Yaz crossed the bridge into Wharton and saw the smoke before he saw the building. The sky above North Main Street was smudged gray, fire trucks crowding a corner he knew by heart, lights bouncing off the front of Pop’s Bagels.

He parked, ran toward the cluster of staff huddled together, and felt his hand go to his chest.

“Going over the bridge, coming down the ramp, seeing all the smoke and the fire trucks, I felt like I completely shut down,” he said. “It was a hard sight to see.”

Inside, just half an hour earlier, it had been an ordinary Thursday morning. The grill was hot. Food sat on the counter. Customers were already inside, settling into familiar routines they barely had to think about.

“Mo was there. The entire rest of the staff was there. Customers were inside. We were operating business as usual,” Yaz said. “There was food on the counter, food on the grill. It was a normal Thursday morning.”

The fire that damaged Pop’s in early December didn’t take any lives. Everyone made it out safely. But for a family that built its life around that shop, and for a town that folded Pop’s into its community fabric, the morning the lights went dark felt like losing more than a business.

“When I think of Pop’s, it’s everything for us as a family,” Yaz said. “It’s where we go to work, but it’s also our livelihood. It’s what gave us everything we have today. It’s hard to explain, but it’s not just a job or a business. It’s everything we’ve built.”

A corner shop, a second home

For 15 years, Pop’s Bagels on North Main Street has quietly organized mornings in Wharton.

Before dawn, the lights come on. By four in the morning, the first customers arrive. Drivers heading out early. Nurses finishing overnight shifts. Contractors grabbing breakfast before long days. Regulars who know exactly when their coffee will be ready.

“Anyone walking into Pop’s is walking into our home,” Yaz said. “The same way you’d be treated walking into my house is how I want you treated walking into Pop’s.”

Hospitality, he explains, is not a slogan. It’s a habit, practiced every day.

That sense of care extends beyond the customers. It shapes how the business treats the people behind the counter, the staff who laugh with each other during lulls, who follow customers’ lives in small, steady ways.

“That applies to customers and to our staff,” Yaz said. “The people who make it all happen. We like to have fun. We like to laugh. That matters.”

When the fire forced the Wharton shop to close, that rhythm broke. Staff were suddenly scattered. The early mornings went quiet.

“We’re doing everything we can to give people hours,” Yaz said. “We’re bringing staff into our Landing location. We’re moving people around. It’s not perfect, but we’re trying to give people as much stability as we can.”

Some customers have followed them to the Landing location. It is a short drive, but it has carried weight.

“Seeing familiar faces there means more than just business,” Yaz said. “It feels like people checking in on us like family. It’s genuinely appreciated.”

A second-generation legacy, with an eye on the third

Pop’s is named for Yaz’s grandfather, a man whose work ethic shaped the family long before the shop opened on North Main.

Yaz grew up in a multigenerational home. His grandparents lived under the same roof. His grandfather came to the United States in the 1970s and worked factory jobs, sometimes three at a time, before eventually opening his own business.

“I remember sitting around listening to his stories,” Yaz said. “Going from factory work to opening his own factory. He had that entrepreneurial spirit.”

That spirit carried forward. In 2011, Yaz’s father Nate opened Pop’s in Wharton. Yaz joined later, after leaving school.

“I remember sitting in class working on a menu and realizing I didn’t want to be there,” he said. “I put together a menu and a layout and pitched it to my father. Eventually I didn’t sign up for classes. I told him I wanted to work alongside him.”

He learned the business not from textbooks, but by standing next to his father.

“I learned more standing next to my father than I ever did in a classroom,” Yaz said. “Pop’s was my window into business.”

Today, Pop’s is a second-generation family business. But when Yaz talks about the future, he talks about responsibility and possibility, often in the same breath.

“I absolutely feel the weight of it,” he said. “I have two little girls, and nieces and nephews. For me, it’s not about becoming some massive business. It’s about building something stable enough that the next generation could choose to carry it forward.”

A hard year in a shaken town

The fire came at the end of a year when Wharton had already absorbed more than its share of disruption. Road closures, detours, and uncertainty had become part of daily life. The dark windows on North Main became another closure to absorb, another gut-punch to endure.

“2025 was rough for Wharton,” Yaz said. “Hopefully 2026 is our year to rebuild.”

For Yaz, the weeks that followed the fire were disorienting.

“The first couple weeks at home were strange,” he said. “After two weeks, I started asking myself, ‘What would I do if there was no Pop’s?’ And that was a scary thought.”

There is nowhere else he sees himself. That realization, he says, clarified something.

“Carrying on the legacy is a privilege,” he said. “But it’s also a great responsibility.”

Rebuilding, and imagining the lights back on

Behind the soot-covered windows, rebuilding moves at the pace that permits and construction allow.

“We’re in the architectural phase now,” Yaz said. “There’s structural damage to the roof. There will be layout changes to make sure what happened doesn’t happen again.”

Wherever he goes, people ask the same question.

“One of the biggest questions I get is whether we’re reopening,” he said. “And the answer is yes. We’re 100% reopening.”

Timing remains uncertain. Hope does not.

“Best case, if everything goes well, we’re thinking a few months. Hopefully spring or early summer.”

When Yaz imagines reopening day, he does not start with equipment or finishes. He starts with faces.

“I think about seeing the same people I saw months ago,” he said. “From the early morning crowd to the afternoon customers. I’m excited for all of it.”

More than anything, he wants it to feel the same.

“No matter how we renovate, I don’t want the feeling of home to be gone,” he said. “I want people to feel like they’re coming back home.”

Asked what reopening represents after everything the town has carried, he answers without hesitation.

“Hope,” he said. “A fire feels like your whole world crashes down. Getting back to normal is hope.”

“Thank you for the past 15 years”

For now, the Landing shop carries more than its usual share of the story. Familiar faces arrive not only for breakfast, but to check in. Schedules shift so staff can keep earning paychecks while the North Main building waits.

“Thank you,” Yaz said. “For the support, the kind words, and for showing up. Seeing familiar faces means more than just business. It feels like people checking in on us, like family.”

If Pop’s could say something to Wharton, he says, it would be simple.

“Thank you for the past 15 years. We wouldn’t be where we are today without Wharton. It was the start of everything.”

In a town where the ground has literally shifted, the promise of a familiar door opening again on North Main is not a small thing. When Pop’s comes back, it will not just be the return of a bagel shop. It will be a family business reopening its doors, a staff coming back together, and a community reclaiming a rhythm it never stopped missing. And until that door opens, the story continues, just a few miles down the road, carried by familiar faces, steady hands, and the quiet belief that some things are worth waiting for.