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.
The hustle continued as they grew into second and third locations in the neighborhood.
Growth is great … until it hinders the business. With customers lined up at the window, foot traffic in the other locations and wholesale orders coming in from nearby stores, the initial success of Just Bagels was almost its demise.
“It just became too much,” Nordquist said. “I had bagels coming out of everywhere. I was trying to run three stores and picking up wholesale accounts, and we didn’t have the infrastructure to handle it.”
Enter Charlie Contreras. After buying into the company 25 years ago, he became the CEO — and the perfect complement to Nordquist and O’Connell — turning the business in a new direction.
“He was exactly what we were looking for,” Nordquist said. “He came in with a finance background, and he’s very, very smart. He’s allowed me to be the voice of the company, sell the bagels and take care of the customers.”
Between the three, there’s a specific chemistry that makes magic happen, and it all stems from mutual respect.
“We all have a job,” Nordquist said. “And nobody wants the other person’s job.”
While Nordquist is the face of the brand, O’Connell is focused on running the bakery. And Contreras?
“The Wizard,” as Nordquist calls him, works behind the curtain to manage the financial side. “We work like three peas in a pod,” Nordquist said.
It only took four years for the trio to grow Just Bagels out of its first 10,000-sq.-ft. manufacturing facility as the business expanded into frozen production.
This story has been adapted from the October | Q4 2023 issue of Commercial Baking. Read the full story in the digital edition here.
