Ultimate Bagel ending its run as a Gonzaga neighborhood mainstay

Two crashes essentially bookend the beginning, and impending end, of a little shop next to Gonzaga University that built its success on bagels and work ethic.

The Ultimate Bagel, a handy hangout for studying students, and customers who crave authentic bagels, will be closing a few days before Thanksgiving, co-owner John Manlowe said.

Located at 1217 N. Hamilton St., No. B, the shop is decorated with decades of old newspaper clippings of Zags basketball moments. It currently has Halloween decorations, including a cartoon Dracula who proclaims “I vant to feed you Bagels.”

The owners have for three decades made fresh bagels, daily, for a shop that remains open seven days a week, except for brief vacation closures.

“It wasn’t going to last forever,” said Manlowe, who has been getting up at about 1 a.m. every day to boil and bake bagels that are sold by his life partner, Christi Chapman, since 1992. “You have to go with change. You can’t fight change.”

That latest change came in May when Christi Chapman was involved in a serious collision with a driver who ran a red light as Chapman was driving to the shop.

She continues to undergo physical therapy, but the daily bagel routine has become too much.

“There’s a point in your life when your health has to come first,” Chapman said. “It’s bittersweet. We worked really hard. I will sure miss all of our customers.”

Jasmin Ochoa, 21, of Bonney Lake, Washington, works at the shop for Chapman. The senior psychology major, with a minor in sports management, followed her older sister, Veronica, in working at The Ultimate Bagel while attending Gonzaga.

“I just feel like this is a heart-and-center place for the students. It’s a comfort spot,” Ochoa said. “It’s culture. You haven’t experienced the true GU experience if you haven’t come to the Ultimate Bagel.”

Like Ochoa’s sister, Chapman said she’s employed several family members over the years.

“Every four months you have to fit everyone in like a puzzle,” she said of her student employees. “All of them have different classes and can only do certain things at certain times.

“I ask about getting their brothers and sisters to work here, or their friends, because they have a very similar work ethic.”

Sudden change

In 1987, Chapman, who is originally from the Tri-Cities, had moved to Spokane when her husband, Christopher Chapman, was transferred to Fairchild Air Force Base after four years serving in Minot, North Dakota.

Christi Chapman had six months before given birth to their daughter, Nicole, when on March 13, 1987, Chapman, an Air Force captain and KC-135 Stratotanker flyer, boarded a training flight flown by another pilot.

The flight, according to archives, involved training for a new Air Force team called the Thunderhawks, similar to the technical aerial displays made famous by the Navy Blue Angels and Air Force Thunderbirds.

Unlike fighter pilot demonstrations, the Thunderhawks would show off the aerial capabilities of the large airplanes deployed by the U.S. Strategic Air Command. The display would showcase low-level refueling simulations, high-bank turns and runway flybys.

On March 13, 1987, the KC-135 Stratotanker had just taken off and was flying in tandem with a B-52 Stratofortress in a training mission to prepare for an air show that was scheduled for May.

Christi Chapman was home with her infant daughter when her father called from the Tri-Cities.

“He just said: ‘We heard something happened at Fairchild. We are driving up,’ ” she said.

Capt. Chapman joined with two other instructor pilots and two navigators on the training flight as the KC-135 maneuvered behind the B-52.

The refueling tanker apparently hit the jetwash from the massive bomber as the pilot was trying to execute a high-bank turn. Two engines stalled on the left wing and the KC-135 plowed into the ground behind three of Fairchild’s large hangars.

As it struck, the airplane skidded on the ground through a security fence and hit a parked car. That collision killed Senior Master Sgt. Paul W. Hamilton, a member of the Thunderhawks, who was watching in his car during his day off from flying.

Killed in the crash were Hamilton, Chapman, Lt. Col. Michael Cornett of Cortez, Colorado; Staff Sgt. Rodney Scott Erks of Lennox, South Dakota; Capt. James Litzinger of Verona, Pennsylvania; and 1st Lt. Mark L. Myers, of Canal Fulton, Ohio.

It remains one of the worst disasters at Fairchild and led to the disbandment of the plan for the Thunderhawks.

“It was hard,” Christi Chapman said as she wiped away tears. “It threw me on a whole new track of life.”

Going Zags

That new track led her back to college, where Chapman took advantage of the G.I. Bill benefits afforded to her by her late husband.

She began attending Gonzaga in pursuit of her master’s in business administration when she met a fellow student of the same age, John Manlowe, of Spokane.

“When we first met, Nicole wasn’t even a year old,” Manlowe said. “We were in study groups together.”

The relationship built slowly.

“School made it easy because we’re together just a few hours a day,” he said. “I tried to take it one day at a time. I knew it was going to be very difficult for her.”

In the meantime, Chapman underwent therapy to help her cope with the loss from the crash.

“That was going to be a major hurdle moving forward with relationships,” Manlowe said. “I knew that, too. I finally wore her down. I asked her out.”

The new couple both had a burning desire to start a business together.

“We didn’t want to work for someone else. We went through this learning process. Let’s see if we can make it work,” he said.

Business ingredients

The couple hired a consulting firm to help give them ideas about what Spokane lacked the most.

“That was the biggest need, a bagel supply in Spokane,” Manlowe said. “Back then, you could only get frozen Lender’s Bagels” in local stores.

Manlowe then traveled to Ashland, Oregon, and worked almost a month at a bagel shop there to learn how to properly make authentic bagels.

“That’s where we picked up on quality. If you want to make them right, you can’t do shortcuts,” he said. “You have to use all natural ingredients, no preservatives. So, you have to do it every day.

“That instilled in us to always use the best products you can – the best meats, the best cream cheeses, everything.”

Then they started looking for locations.

“We kind of wanted to be around Gonzaga, but there really wasn’t anything available at that time,” he said.

They started in 1992 with a small bakery behind another business in the Wandermere area. They continue to this day to boil and bake the bagels behind Selkirk Pizza and Tap House, at 12424 N Division St.

The couple initially opened a bagel shop on 29th Avenue on the South Hill just before road work shut down all traffic, and access to customers, for about a year.

“You don’t learn that in MBA classes, but you learn it in real life,” Manlowe said.

“We should have looked to see if there was going to be any major construction in the area.”

They also started a downtown location in the Sherwood Building, at 510 W. Riverside Ave., which provided a ready source of customers because it was the home office for Sterling Bank.

“That was a great location,” Manlowe said. Sterling Bank then “built their own building and the Sherwood building became empty and we had to sell.”

They then found the current location on Hamilton Avenue.

“It’s been very good,” he said of the current spot. “It’s been a symbiotic relationship.”

Gonzaga students not only provide labor, they can even use the same meal cards they use to purchase food on campus at The Ultimate Bagel, he said.

Chapman said those relationships are what she appreciates the most.

“Our first employees got old enough that their kids worked for me,” he said. “It’s so cool seeing all the students studying and doing well. Then they come back through with their kids and you really feel old.”

The customer base got the restaurant through the COVID-19 pandemic, although it dipped into the couple’s savings.

Through it all, they served Gonzaga basketball, tennis, cross country and rowing teams and fans through the decades.

“I’m in contact with a lot of old customers who are now my friends,” Chapman said. “People stop in when they are in town. I love that. I’ll miss that.”

But other realities are conspiring against the business partners, who are both 65.

While COVID didn’t kill the business, inflation is doing its best.

For instance, Chapman used to pay $66 for 30 pounds of cream cheese just 18 months ago. Last year it went up to $126 and now it costs $156 for the same 30 pounds, she said.

“It’s crazy. We always wanted to serve the highest-quality stuff. I have to do it,” Chapman said. “I think that separates us.

“But there is only so many times you can raise prices and it just doesn’t work anymore.”

The couple also sells wholesale bagels to Retro Donuts, Huckleberry’s Natural Market and a couple of other locations.

They are also in talks with some café owners about purchasing the business, or equipment, but nothing has been determined for the location. They can’t sell the building because its on a month-to-month lease.

Mostly, the couple is looking at finalizing plans for their next big change.

“The car wreck kind of threw a monkey wrench in our plans,” Manlowe said. “We now have to let Christi get better. She takes priority.”

Chapman, who only got to spend a couple of hours every afternoon with her business and life partner, will now get a normal life with Manlowe and their two dogs, Sadie and Cooper.

“That was a whole different life track,” Chapman said of the bagel shop. “We’ll start a new one at the end of the year.”