How Angel Bagley’s 40th Birthday Turned into a Business
Get to know the entrepreneur behind Angelically Designed, plus Andy's observations on the influx of new AYCE Korean restaurants in Central Ohio.
In this post:
Get to know the entrepreneur behind Angelically Designed
Thoughts on the all-you-can-eat hot pot and KBBQ craze
Food news around Columbus
Meet the Makers
Get to Know the Entrepreneur Behind Angelically Designed
By Erin Edwards
If you see Angel Bagley’s business at a farmers market, you are first struck by her table’s presentation. Angelically Designed’s charcuterie boards are elegant and precise (a rosemary sprig is Bagley’s signature). The cute individual desserts—like cookie butter cheesecake, lemon cake and creamy banana pudding—are absolute eye-candy.
A Columbus native, Bagley says she’s “very particular about how I arrange things.” It’s a trait she gets from her mom, Deborah Hunter, who catered events when Bagley was younger. “From the time I was eight, I was always with my mom in the kitchen with her baking,” she says. “My mom is a stickler for presentation.”
Bagley has always enjoyed hosting parties. And for her 40th birthday, just over a year ago, she decided to cater her own party. She made desserts and individual charcuterie cups for everyone.
“Everyone was like, ‘Why would you do that? Why wouldn't you just hire somebody?’ But I had a vision of what I wanted, right? And I just did it.”
“It was all the things that I've always done,” Bagley told me in a recent phone interview. “I've always been that person who enjoyed hosting. Or [everyone wanted me] to bring something to a party, and that's what I did for my own party. It kind of gave me permission that I could [start a business]. So I did.”
That was August 3rd, 2023. A month later, Bagley had a business license and had launched Angelically Designed.
The speed with which she launched her food business was uncharacteristic for her, Bagley says. “While I get ideas, I'm the type of person that kind of likes to mull over them a bit. … Usually, I'd want it to be very well thought out. I'd want to have saved up a specific amount of money to make sure that I could cover everything. And I didn't.”
Instead, she went on Amazon and bought the basic scaffolding for her business: a table, a tablecloth and some acrylic stands. She put herself out there: Booking events—I first sampled her knockout banana pudding at the Columbus Natural Wine Festival in June—and setting up her table at farmers markets like the Dublin Market at Bridge Park.
From an ecommerce standpoint, Bagley did have a head start. The married mother of two works full-time for Square, the financial services platform that offers websites and payment systems for businesses large and small. Today, Bagley works with Square’s “priority sellers that are bringing in gross values of 2 million or more a year.”
Angelically Designed may not be there yet, but Bagley says her biggest reward since starting the side business has been something much more significant than money.
“I think one of my proudest memories in this short year that I've had my business is watching my daughter sell stuff. ... She's a whiz. And the pride that I see in her when she's telling people about mommy's business, and the pride that I see in her when she's like, ‘Mom, can I go work with you?’ It's something that I didn't expect with the business—that my kids will be proud of me.”
Though Angelically Designed just wrapped up its farmers market season in Dublin, you can find Bagley’s table at a variety of fall events such as Groveport’s Apple Butter Day festival this Saturday, Oct. 12, and BloomFest at Petals That Inspire on Sunday, Oct. 20.
Angelically Designed also accepts orders for pickup or delivery at angelicallydesigned.com.
Trends
Observations on the All-You-Can-Eat Korean Hot Pot and BBQ Craze
By Andy Dehus
All-you-can-eat Korean chain restaurants are popping up at a stunning clip, with four currently open and one more coming soon near Georgesville Road. At first blush, there’s a lot to like about this trend: the ongoing mainstreaming of a less-represented culture, and the ‘always know what you’re paying ahead of time’ accessibility that helps with budget-friendly splurges.
There are also more than a few questions that spring to mind.
Such as: Why so many AYCE Korean spots and why now? These are serious investments, with costly equipment for cooking integrated into every table in the dining room (and in One Pot’s case, outside dining, too). This amounts to a lot of restaurateurs making big bets at the same time in one city. To fill all of these seats in their sizable dining rooms, their customers are going to have to be coming from somewhere else. Right?
So, what makes this a good bet, and where are all of these customers going to come from? Young, cost-conscious fans of Asian food, who might not find traditional Korean BBQ budget-friendly (or easy to decipher), must account for some of the demand, especially with the influence of Korean popular culture driving interest.
I suspect there’s another customer, one that may reflect an evolution in America’s tastes in Asian cuisine: the hibachi enthusiast. Korean AYCE spots provide a similar dining experience to hibachi in many respects—an all-inclusive dining experience with an element of theater, for one—but with just the right combination of novelty and accessibility to make the well-worn hibachi schtick start to look a bit played out in comparison.
I’ve had a similar sense observing the dining rooms in Chinese hot pot restaurants. The all-you-can-eat for one low price message is getting out, and the preexisting cultural barriers that might have once limited broader interest are starting to fall by the wayside.
From our family’s personal experiences at the AYCE Korean restaurants, we’ve largely concluded that you get what you pay for (especially on the KBBQ side of things), with One Pot standing out for its surprisingly enjoyable and unusually varied hot pot offering.
From an overall quality perspective, the established locals like Don Pocha and Gogi are still the way to go, especially for their quality of KBBQ meats.
I see Johae Chong, owner of Don Pocha, with some frequency. Though he’s hesitant to say much about the newcomers to Central Ohio’s Korean dining scene, he will often point out when owners or managers of Korean chains are enjoying a meal in his dining room.
That tells you everything you need to know.
To learn more about how to navigate Korean BBQ, see Bethia’s article in Columbus Monthly here.
Notes
Around the Columbus Food Scene
The owners of Hoyo’s Kitchen are flipping their Bubbly Hall space into a new concept: Rhino Smashburger Co. The new venture will serve smashburgers, loaded fries and milkshakes. Look for it to debut at 11 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 18.
Joya's Cafe, the Bengali-American cafe from chef Avishar Barua, is getting the Guy Fieri treatment. The Worthington eatery will be featured on Food Network’s "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" on Oct. 18 at 9 p.m. Barua is no stranger to Food Network. Last year, the Columbus native appeared on “Beat Bobby Flay” and ended up doing just that with his version of a kati roll.