This award-winning Tucson baker is adding bagels to his portfolio

Tucson’s James Beard Award-winning baker Don Guerra is adding bagels to his array of award-winning Barrio Bread, but don’t expect Barrio Bagels to be a knock-off of New York bagels.

Guerra is employing the same philosophy and ethos to his bagels as he does to his breads, which landed him the prestigious 2022 James Beard Award for Outstanding Baker.

He starts with the freshly-milled Sonoran grains from Hayden Flour Mills and the sourdough starter he uses as leaven in his artisan breads. The bagels are healthier, he said, because he doesn’t add sugars or oil.

“This is not a New York City bagel. This is not a Montreal bagel. This is a Sonoran bagel,” Guerra said on Wednesday, a day after he announced plans to introduce Barrio Bagel at a pop-up Sunday, July 2, at his Barrio Bread bakery, 18 S. Eastbourne Ave., off East Broadway. “I am doing something different. I am doing something that is me and that is the Sonoran region.”

Barrio Bagels will be available at Barrio Bread, but they won’t be baked there. They will be produced at the popular Phoenix bagel bakery Chompie’s. Guerra teamed up with Neal Borenstein, whose family has been making New York style bagels at their popular bakery since 1979, to create the bagel and produce it for sale at Guerra’s Tucson bakery as well as local retail outlets, hotels and restaurants.

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“It’s always something I wanted to try, but it just made sense once they presented it to me,” Guerra said. “I think there’s room here in Tucson to have another local bagel offering. And I think my bagel is about more than the food. It’s about supporting local agriculture and the economy and culture and gastronomy of the region.”

Tucson is home to several national bagel chains, the Bubbe’s Fine Bagels, which has two locations, and Monsoon Chocolate‘s bagel popup Bernie’s Bagels.

Guerra has recruited his friend and Tucson chef Riley Chandler to help out with Sunday’s pop-up, which opens at 8 a.m. They will have a limited supply of three varieties of bagels — plain, everything and sesame — and housemade cream cheese schmears starting at $5 for a bagel with cream cheese.

Guerra said he plans to do several bagel pop-ups, following his hugely popular Friday Night Pizza pop-ups that he has been hosting for several months. He hopes to have Barrio Bagels on the shelves of Barrio Bread by mid-July.