Final yr, Max and Kayla Palmer reached throughout town and united cultures with their New Yr, All Yr chef collaboration collection. Cooks with completely different backgrounds labored with them to make bagel sandwiches highlighting conventional meals and celebrating completely different New Yr’s observances.
Because the collaborations have been wrapping up, the couple realized they didn’t need them to finish. So for 2026, the Palmers have launched Bagelshop & Associates: Unfold the Love. Every month, the Donelson-based bagel restaurant will collaborate with a unique restaurant companion or chef to create a limited-time schmear — lingo, as you hopefully know, for cream cheese or different spreadables on a bagel. The schmears shall be obtainable for the complete month in take-home pints and served on bagels and sandwiches at Bagelshop, relatively than simply for just a few days, as was the case with final yr’s promotion. And in contrast to 2025’s New Yr, All Yr, they may also be obtainable on the collaborating cooks’ eating places.
As all Tennesseans know, January contains what ought to be a nationwide vacation — Dolly Parton’s birthday on Jan. 19. So the collaborations begin with White Limozeen, the rooftop restaurant on the Graduate Nashville Resort that sports activities an enormous pink chicken-wire bust of Dolly. The raspberry rosé and white chocolate schmear (described as just a little further glam, similar to Dolly) shall be paired with a Bagelshop bagel throughout brunch at White Limozeen and day by day at Poindexter Espresso within the Graduate Nashville foyer in Midtown.
“We have been similar to, ‘How Dolly can we get?’” Max says. “It’s shiny pink, it’s going to be enjoyable, it’s going to be glittery, it’s going to be actually cool, and similar to, it’s going to really feel like a sandwich that Dolly Parton would eat.”
The collection contains each candy and savory mixtures. Following January’s candy combo is one other well timed candy possibility: king cake cream cheese created with The Gulch’s The Gumbo Bros. (Particulars nonetheless to return on whether or not there shall be a child hidden someplace in a bagel with a schmear.)
Bagelshop Homeowners Max and Kayla Palmer
As a result of Bagelshop is a “select your individual journey” form of place, diners can attempt the particular schmear on a advised combo or construct their very own. “If you wish to get this white chocolate raspberry on a spicy all the things bagel, then all the ability to you,” says Max. “I’m by no means going to cease you, and I’m probably going to encourage it, as a result of I like craziness, and I do know that some issues simply occur to work.”
With New Yr, All Yr, the crew was growing the initiative as they went alongside. However now that they’re extra skilled with collaborations, they’ve been in a position to plot out the entire yr — though they’re maintaining among the bulletins underneath wraps till later. One perk of the promotion is the chance to work with cooks the {couples} admire, Max says.
March brings a chimichurri schmear in collaboration with East Nashville’s Turkey and the Wolf Icehouse, obtainable on a particular menu merchandise that has but to be introduced.
“Folks used to ask us, ‘What’s your favourite restaurant you’ve ever been to?’” Max says. “Going again years and years in the past, me and Kayla used to journey all the way down to New Orleans on a regular basis, simply to go eat at Turkey and the Wolf. It’s been cool since they opened [in Nashville] to work with them. It’s loopy that they even know who we’re!”
Max considers the Turkey and the Wolf bologna sandwich considered one of his favorites. “I’m equally as excited that it’s taking place. We’re attending to work with such superior those who I respect a lot locally.”
Max appreciates that most of the collaborators do what Bagelshop hopes to do: ship elevated flavors with out a fancy fine-dining expertise.
“To have the ability to work with Maíz de la Vida, [Julio Hernandez] is such an awesome chef, and I’ve all the time simply been enamored with the work that he’s executed, particularly since he form of began across the identical time we did again COVID-ish,” Max says. “We have been doing farmers markets on the identical time, and it’s simply loopy. He began doing tortilla gross sales at a farmers market after which constructed such an superior model for himself. It’s been so cool to see.”
The Maíz de la Vida collaboration is in Might, following East Nashville’s Butcher & Bee in April, which can possible embody a twist on their uber-popular whipped feta. The primary half of the yr wraps up with East Nashville’s Frankies 925 Spuntino.
Every collab is accessible for one month solely.
“You have got a month to return and check out it, and should you prefer it, you possibly can proceed to attempt it all through the month,” says Max. “As soon as it’s over, it’s time for one thing new, and possibly one thing fully completely different.”
