THE BEARDED BAKER:THREE TIMES HIT, STILL STANDING
By Jim Towers, M.JA., J.D., Civic Investigative Photojournalist. Houston Heights independent.
Houston Heights Independent | August 2026
The bearded Baker, A bakery in the Heights.
The plywood in the window at 518 West 11th Street tells part of the story.
It's the part you see from the sidewalk — raw OSB fitted into a black steel frame where glass used to be, sitting beneath a sign that still reads The Bearded Baker, Houston, Texas in letters big enough to read from the middle of 11th Street. The bakery is open. The chalkboard out front still advertises the Saturday special. People are still coming through the door.
The part the cameras missed is what matters.
The Bearded Baker is a custom cookie and pastry shop that has quietly become one of the Heights' most recognizable small businesses. Owner Allan Hursig has been baking for this neighborhood long enough that the Food Network noticed. Long enough that when things go wrong, the Heights shows up. Long enough that the regulars don't need to be asked — they just come.
Things have gone wrong three times now.
The most recent break-in happened in the early morning hours of May 21, approximately 2:30 a.m., when three suspects forced their way through the front window, moved through the bakery, and left with a Bluetooth speaker and a tub of peanut butter. The window repair cost more than what they took.
What the television cameras didn't show — because they weren't inside — is what a young Heights High School graduate, weeks away from heading off to college, walked me through after the fact. She showed me the point of entry. She showed me the path they took through the building. She explained why the alarm didn't catch it in time. She showed me where they went out.
Same spot. Same time Same window.
was able to get a look into the kitchen.
The most valuable piece of equipment in that building is a commercial-grade mixer — the kind of machine a working bakery depends on — bolted to a worktable that is itself anchored to the floor. It isn't going anywhere. The suspects have walked past it every single time. Beyond that, the Bearded Baker operates entirely cashless. There is no register, no till, no safe, no cash drawer. There is nothing of immediate street value to take.
And yet they keep coming back. Same entry point. Same hours. Three times.
Allan Hursig wasn't at the bakery when it happened. He was home — one day removed from his first chemotherapy session. He was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer last month, and the alarm system woke him in the middle of the night to surveillance footage of three men working their way through his bakery. His public response the next morning was characteristically Heights: "To add to our 2026 bingo card — we just had three stooges break into the shop last night. We will be open for business as usual." He's stated In a public post the morning after the break-in,
And then, when pressed on what he was fighting for through all of it: "What I'm actually fighting toward is getting back to the things I love — making people happy."
The neighborhood heard him. The Bearded Baker has sold out of cookies every day since the break-in. Family members were at the bakery before dawn to clean up the glass and get the cases stocked. Regulars came through the door the same morning. The community didn't need to be organized — it just moved.
That response says something about Allan Hursig and something about this neighborhood.
But the question that nobody's coverage has answered — the one that a retired law enforcement officer asks when he stands inside that kitchen and looks at that bolted-down mixer — is the one worth asking: why does the same location keep getting hit, at the same time of night, through the same point of entry, by people who leave with almost nothing?
Three times is not a coincidence. Three times is a pattern.
HPD is investigating. Anyone with information is asked to contact Houston police.
The Bearded Baker is at 518 West 11th Street in the Heights. They are open. Go buy some cookies.
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