BRONX, NY — It started with a walk-up window. And in true New Yorker fashion, people lined up. That’s when Cliff Nordquist, president of Bronx, NY-based Just Bagels, knew he was onto something special.
Having grown up in Brooklyn the son of a bus driver and union worker, Nordquist felt drawn to entrepreneurial life, jumping on an opportunity to open a tiny bagel shop on Westchester Avenue in the Pelham Bay section of the Bronx after taking out a hefty loan from his parents in the mid-’90s.
“It was a lot of money,” Nordquist remembered. “My mom was really nervous about that, but she wanted to help me. Up to that point, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do; I just knew I wanted to be successful.”
There’s nothing like the pressure of not letting your mother down to spark the entrepreneurial spirit. So, he partnered with Jimmy O’Connell, now Just Bagels’ VP and general manager, and the duo started cranking out bagels to sell through a window Nordquist had cut into the shop’s front door.