Beloved KC’s Bagel Cafe changes hands, keeps tradition of being a local fixture

April 8, 2025  |  By Cheryl Casey  |  Correspondent

New co-owners at KC's Bagel Cafe, Casey Magee and Amber Austin. Photo by Cheryl Casey

Just days before celebrating its 30th anniversary, the owners and founders of K.C.’s Bagel Cafe sold the business and began their long-awaited retirement. 

In a post on the cafe’s Facebook page on Feb. 2, Buffy Garrand and Kyle Russell announced the sale, officially inked two days earlier, to childhood friends Amber Austin and Casey Magee, who grew up together in Waterbury Center. 

Austin, who still lives in the Center, has worked for K.C.’s on and off for about 15 years. When her full-time desk job as an accountant proved miserable, Austin confided in Magee that her happiest time at work was at K.C.’s Bagel. So Magee encouraged her: “Then quit your job and go work at the bagel shop!” 

That was two years ago. From the moment of her full-time return to K.C.’s, Austin said she began talking with Russell and Garrand about buying the business, knowing they were ready to prepare for retirement. 

“We started to think about selling the business at our 25th year,” said Garrand and Russell in an email to the Roundabout. “The cafe was a 24-hour, 7-days-a-week commitment, and physically and mentally we were getting to feel our ages. We have always said we love what we do—just wanted to do it 30-40 hours a week.”

When Austin, who the cafe’s founders called “an incredible human being,” asked for first dibs to buy the business as part of returning to work at the cafe, Garrand and Russell were ready to start having some concrete conversations about their retirement. 

“We take pride in the fact that we were owner-operated,” they said, explaining, “we were always present in our business, and customers always saw our faces. We truly believe [this] was a major part of [K.C.’s success].”

They said they are firmly convinced that Austin and Magee are “the perfect pair to buy K.C.’s Bagel Cafe…. [they] and their families are community-minded and good humans. We believe Amber and Casey will keep the same values, work ethic, and continue the [cafe’s] legacy for another 30 years,” Garrand and Russell said.

The sentiment appears pretty mutual. 

“This is Amber’s dream come true,” Magee said in an interview, adding with a laugh, “She’s wanted to buy this place since she was 15.” 

For her part, Magee, who lives just over the bridge in Duxbury, was feeling similarly hollowed out by her own desk job as a corporate insurance agent. For additional income, she “picked up odd jobs at restaurants here and there,” she explained. That included working for eight years at Blackback Pub, which was co-owned by her mother, Lynn Mason, before she and partner Dave Juenker sold the pub and found a winter retirement home in Arizona. 

“I’ve never enjoyed [working a corporate job],” Magee admitted. “I am not someone who likes to sit still.” 

Then one day about a year ago, Austin arrived at Magee’s house for dinner. To share her plans to buy the cafe she announced, “I need a partner.”

Perhaps somewhat to both Magee and Austin’s surprise, Magee jumped at the opportunity to embark on this adventure with one of her oldest friends. “I never knew she needed or wanted a partner to do this with [and] I don’t think she was even thinking I was going to say I wanted to do it,” Magee recalled. “I was like – absolutely – let’s make this happen.” 

Garrand and Russell called Magee “a bonus addition” to the arrangement.

Austin, delighted about having Magee as her partner, pointed out that taking on ownership is a serious commitment. “It’s not a one-person job for sure. It’s seven days a week, 24/7,” she said. 

While Austin had the benefit of having already spent years learning the business and craft of baking bagels, Magee had to bring herself up to speed, working Sunday hours at the shop starting late last October. 

“I was learning everything I could, but I had to learn everything,” Magee confessed. “I spent months learning how to bake with Amber, learning how to do dough and everything,” including how to handle orders so she could understand what the staff goes through in a day.

For Magee, both the most challenging and surprising aspect of learning the business was baking. “It’s a whole process that I had no idea about. You have to understand the dough,” she said. “You have to understand the rotations of baking. That did take a really long time to learn, but Amber is a good teacher,” she added. 

In making the transition from long-time employee to new owner, Austin admitted that her greatest challenge has been finding balance. “I’m a zero-to-100 kind of person, so pacing myself is not something I am very good at,” she said. Both women acknowledged how easy it could be to let the work consume them but that finding balance is crucial. 

“This business is seven days a week and we both have kids at home. But I love it, so it’s hard,” Austin said.

KC's Bagel Cafe has new owners,  Amber Austin and Casey Magee. Photo by Cheryl Casey

As for their vision for the future of K.C.’s Bagel Cafe, Austin and Magee are focused on honoring the cafe as an ongoing staple in the community. “We want to see it around for another 30 years,” Magee said. 

Austin added, “It was 30 years on February 4, so we don’t really want to change it.” 

Loyal customers can rest assured that the core menu will remain intact while encountering some surprises in cream cheese flavors, baked goods, and a new sandwich or two. Otherwise, it will be business as usual, in keeping with the example set by Garrand and Russell. 

“It’s such a great environment. Kyle and Buffy were such huge role models for me throughout my entire life,” Austin reflected. “It has been just a great atmosphere, great place, great location, great people, and a great community,” she said. 

Austin remarked on how she is particularly struck when she recognizes kids she made bagels for when they were little, “And they’re now driving here on their way into high school or they’re away at college and I see them [in the cafe] in the summertime. Everybody loves this place.”

In their Facebook announcement in early February, Garrand and Russell thanked the community, their customers, and their landlord “for the immense privilege to be part of Waterbury. ” They also promised their two grown kids, “the family vacation will happen.” (As promised, the two recently spent four days in Palm City, Florida, with family.)

Garrand and Russell also reported progress on some home projects and planned quality time with family at their small cottage in the Champlain Islands. “Most importantly,” they said, “first grandchild is due late August.”

Although their days ahead are full of things to look forward to, Garrand and Russell admitted it’s a big adjustment. “We are still adjusting mentally and physically, and sometimes it does not seem real. We miss our staff and our customers,” they said, adding that although they are out of the cafe, their role as its longtime proprietors remains. “We get a lot of waves and ‘we miss you’ conversations that warm our hearts,” they said. 

Nevertheless, the pair insist their decisions “all felt right” as they take their new role cheering on their successors. They closed their Facebook post with an all-caps promise to Austin, Magee, and the staff: “You will rock this!”