Today we’d like to introduce you to Samantha Bongiorno.
Hi Samantha, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
We are a family-owned business in Gilbert, Arizona. We moved here from New York about seven years ago now. My husband, John, and I met at the Culinary Institute of America in late 2012. We both were studying Culinary Arts and Restaurant Management. My father, Eddie, was a FDNY Lieutenant for many years and as many people may know, the obsession with food is exacerbated in the firehouse. From a very young age, I knew that I wanted a career in the culinary industry. My husband and I are both from big Italian families, and grew up around food and have a true love of food. My dad would teach me how to use a knife and “tuck my fingers” when I was about five years old. I was in a technical school training and competing in culinary competitions as a freshman in high school through to the collegiate level.
I eventually placed third in the nation as a senior in high school, where I received a scholarship to The Culinary Institute of America. I gained experience from three different restaurants prior to starting my college education. My husband’s journey is a bit different. He has a bachelor’s in business from St. John’s University, where he then decided to take his passion of food to the next level. After he finished his degree at St. John’s, he enrolled at The Culinary Institute of America and pursued his Associate Degree in Culinary Arts. My dad was employed as a soda jerk at Hildebrant’s Restaurant in Williston Park, NY when he was a teenager. That’s where his love of food began. He passed that love onto me. He was also heavily involved in the volunteer fire department in Long Island, then was able to take his dream to the next level when he got onto the FDNY as a fireman in July of 1993, a couple of weeks after I was born. He worked his way up the ladder through the fire department and was promoted to Lieutenant in the early 2000’s.
After graduating from The Culinary Institute of America in 2014, John and I made the move to Arizona for a more sustainable life (NY is extremely expensive for two chef salaries, LOL). My dad retired from the FDNY in 2014 and both of our families made the move to Arizona a couple of years later. We were both working full time, I was a Catering Sales Manager at Arizona State University and John was a Head Line Cook at the Sanctuary Resort on Camelback. Our parents were enjoying retired life until we popped the question in 2016. “Mom and Dad, we really would like to open a place, but something that would fit with work/life balance.” The culinary industry can be detrimental on family life with long hours, grueling work, and non-stop anxiety. We wanted to ensure that we were basing our decisions off of a strong emphasis on family. Both sides of the family jumped at the opportunity and that’s when Bongiorno Bagels was established. We started the grind and to our surprise, we got pregnant in December of 2017. We were set to open the shop in May of 2018. If opening a business weren’t stressful enough, let’s throw a baby in there. John and Eddie took point on starting the business which included finding a location, building out the location, purchasing equipment, permitting, hiring, the list seemed to never end. I was still working at Arizona State University through my pregnancy. Due to build out issues and delays in construction, the date of open was pushed to early October 2018. Our daughter, Maria Vincenza Bongiorno was born on September 8th, 2018 and I started my maternity leave right away. I then got heavily involved in the bagel shop which wasn’t technically supposed to happen. I was supposed to go back to work at ASU 8 weeks after she was born. We were down to the wire to open and about a week after my daughter was born, we were back at it and I was helping every way that I could.
My husband, dad, mom, mother in law, father in law, brother, our daughter, and me would come in each morning with our staff at about 2:30-3:00am. I know that sounds horrible but we had to do what we had to do to make it work. We opened in early October 2018 and we were busy. Unexpectedly busy. We would get into work at about 3am and we wouldn’t leave until about 9pm. I would feed my daughter in the office every 2 hours and my mom and my mother in law would take shifts watching her while I was cooking on the line 10 feet away. Our dads were grinding making bagels at the oven and taking orders. Thank god our baby was so good. She truly was such a well-rounded kid. She would just watch my employees roll bagels. When she would cry, I would yell, “can someone move the stroller back and forth, please?” We still joke to this day that our employees doubled as a baby sitter. I couldn’t go back to work at ASU and leave my family here to fend for themselves. I made the tough decision to leave the job that I loved so much and stay at the family business. It was hard but worth it in the end.
My husband and I would listen to motivational speeches in the car on our way in and I would pray. We would talk to my dad regularly (he’s the true voice of reason) and try to just work through it. We would talk to one another and say “let’s do this, another day, we can do this.” We were learning the business as we went, with our families and our daughter by our side. We would sometimes go into the office for a minute and look at our baby and just cry. How were we going to do this everyday for the rest of our lives? We questioned it a couple of times, we contemplated closing the doors and not because we weren’t busy. The community supported us ten-fold. We had/have a line out of the door everyday and we couldn’t comprehend it. We were fairly new in our marriage, brand new parents, brand new business owners and it was scary. We were well-received by the community. We had no idea how many people were living here from the East Coast and we really hit a niche market.
We had to work through so many trials and tribulations but we finally did it and we have our family and our amazing staff to thank. We still have a few of the same staff members as we did when we first opened and they are now like family. We wouldn’t have been able to do any of this without them. Now, almost three years later and we are still going. We are open Thursday through Sunday. We close two weeks in the summer for family vacation each year and we close the week of September 11th each year to honor those who passed away on September 11th, 2001. We work closely with Tunnel to Towers Tempe and each year, we donate an entire day of sales in September to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation. We close for major holidays and family events. We are centered and focused on our family life. We did not start this business to make millions. We wanted to bring an authentic New York Deli and Bagel Shop to Gilbert, Arizona and I think so far, we have done just that.
Seeing our daughter running around our bagel shop now fills our hearts with so much happiness. She takes “orders” from customers and our customers know her already. She’s the real boss, let’s be honest. We know our customers by their first names and we know their orders. We pride ourselves in having that atmosphere. We are extremely humbled and grateful for the opportunity that has been given to us and to our families for making it possible.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
We are known for our New York style bagels. We boil and bake our bagels fresh daily. We also serve Boar’s Head Meats & Cheeses. We are known for our house made corned beef – we brine this in house and boil. We are also known for our Chicken Cutlet Sandwiches and Lox Bagels. We know the market. We are personable. We are classically trained. We have knowledge of food and flavors that set us above along with the experience. We bring in authentic New York products. We have the New York Water Maker that filters our water to be the same compounds, PH balance, acidity, alkalinity, to that of New York water. We ship in New York Crumb Cake, Black and White Cookies, and Knishes. We also have Marino’s Italian ices. I also make Rainbow Cookies and Pignoli Cookies for the holidays. We won Best Bagels in Phoenix 2020 which was such an honor.
What are your plans for the future?
We plan to expand in the future to distribution to hotels in the area.
Contact Info:
- Email: bongiornobagels18@gmail.com
- Website: www.bongiornobagels.com
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/bongiorno-bagels-gilbert?uid=giB0nQS-M-zRT5f0lpwEZA&utm_campaign=www_business_share_popup&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=(direct)
