After a decade of boiling and baking, Whidbey’s resident bagel guy is ready to pass the title on to someone new.

John Auburn, owner of the Whidbey Island Bagel Factory, is selling all three of his restaurants to his employees. His successor for the South Whidbey location couldn’t have a more perfect name – Clinton Hatton, who has spent the past two years as the mixer in the Ken’s Korner shop.

“The guy is just a jack of all trades,” Auburn said.

Hatton will take over as the new proprietor in Clinton starting Sept. 1.

The Whidbey Island Bagel Factory has seen a lot of growth in the past few years, opening new locations in Oak Harbor and Mount Vernon. Auburn has plans to sell the Oak Harbor shop to the manager, Amanda Post, next year. The Mount Vernon manager, Becky Lacey, is taking over the off-island location even sooner.

As for Auburn, he will use his assets from the shop sales to buy homes and turn them into duplexes and triplexes for affordable housing on South Whidbey. As a restaurant owner, he has seen firsthand the impact that a lack of housing for workers has wrought – four employees left because they couldn’t find a place to live, and the Clinton shop was only open for limited hours with not enough staffing. He has already turned half of his own home into affordable housing for a renter who works on the island, and he already has another project in mind.

“I’ve been here since 1982. I’m not leaving. In fact, I’m probably gonna dig a hole for myself,” he joked.

Auburn credits two couples, Dan and Berdine Saul and Sharon and Fred Lundahl, for financially supporting him in opening the Whidbey Island Bagel Factory. In 2015, he bought the former Kiichli’s Bagel Shop at Ken’s Korner. He remembered how that shop would do all the baking in the morning and stop selling bagels by noon, so he made it a goal of his to not run out of bagels.

Before bagels, he did a different kind of baking, creating cake sculptures and high-end wedding cakes for his business J.W. Desserts. He participated in TV competitions featured on the Food Network and TLC and made gingerbread houses for Bill and Melinda Gates every year.

“It’s been quite an experience,” Auburn said of his bagel shops. “I didn’t even think 10 years ago this was gonna happen.”

He gets emotional when he talks about the customers.

“The people are so freaking amazing,” he said. “I meet them from all over the world, literally all over the world because Whidbey’s a destination place, and the stories they’ve told … people from Ukraine, England, Africa, just everywhere.”

This Sunday is his last day on the job. Under new ownership, he doesn’t expect much to change.

Hatton has been behind the scenes mixing dough, shaping and proving it.

“It’s an interesting job,” he said. “It’s one part science, one part art and one part athletics. And people don’t enjoy that combination.”

When Auburn approached him about buying the Clinton shop, he leapt at the chance. He’s been a chef before, but this is his first time as a restaurateur.

“I’m excited to do something that I really love doing and not just trying to make a buck to get through life,” Hatton said. “Do something that the community loves and I love. It’ll be fun.”

(Photo by David Welton) John Auburn, the owner of Whidbey Island Bagel Factory, is selling all three of his restaurants to his employees.

(Photo provided) Clinton Hatton, the soon-to-be new proprietor of the Whidbey Island Bagel Factory’s location in Clinton, shapes a Banh Mi dough baby.