Soon after Jake and Courtney Poulsen, along with Courtney’s parents, Cindy and Gary Mechler, opened a Kolache Shoppe franchise in Celina in January 2024, they started forging partnerships with Celina restaurants to source ingredients for their made-fresh-daily kolaches.

Although the bakery is a franchise based in Houston, and all dough is made using a Czech recipe founder Erwin Ahrens created in 1971, franchisees are given creative license to riff on flavors.

On the menu

Some of the popular kolache specials featuring local flavors have been the wagyu cheeseburger from The Forge 1912, brisket chile from Toasted Walnut, coconut cream pie from Lucy’s on the Square and bourbon pecan pie from Rollertown.

“We have a lot of the same kolaches you’ll see in Houston plus the partners we have in Celina,” Jake Poulsen said. “We always have Tender brisket in our kolaches. Every month we do specials with restaurants from around the community.”


The community support door also swings the other way. St. Francis of Assissi Catholic Church in Frisco sells the shops kolaches at the onsite coffee shop.

Best selling non-special savory options include sausage and gravy; sausage and cheese; bacon, egg and cheese; venison and Tender brisket. Sweet best sellers are cream cheese, Nutella and cinnamon rolls.

The kitchen staff arrives at 3 a.m., to make the dough, prepare the fillings and put them in the kolaches. It takes six hours to make about 1,500 kolaches.

The store also has a full espresso bar which offers monthly specials.


The backstory

Courtney Poulsen played on the Texas A&M lacrosse team with Lucy Hines, who co-owns the Kolache Shoppe company with her husband Randy Hines. The Celina location is the first franchise in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, all others are in the Houston area.

“Randy and Lucy are our dear friends,” Courtney Poulsen said. “We liked the idea of franchising but Kolache Shoppe especially because of the culture, values and people.”

What makes them special


Because all kolaches are made fresh daily, they offer a buy-one-get-one deal the last hour the store is open.

“We don't keep anything,” Courtney Poulsen said. “We partner with Neighbors Nourishing Neighbors, a food bank in Prosper, and donate our extras to them. They actually just had a fire so we just did a fundraising effort for them.”