The 25-year-old Arizona natives came up with the idea to start their brand while enjoying bagels together in Tempe. They were finishing their degrees at Arizona State University and sitting in a Tempe bagel shop.
"This isn't so hard," Vidales says they told each other, holding up their bagels, "we can do this too."
"We also saw a big gap in the market," Orozco explains, "there are a lot of bagel places around Phoenix, Tempe, Tuscon, places we've been to and enjoyed, but not anything around our home base in the Central Avenue and Baseline side of South Phoenix."
It took time, a lot of trial and error, judging of different bagel recipes from both their families, watching YouTube videos and heavily researching what Orozco calls "classic and historical bagel crafting."
Orozco and Vidales started selling bagels in 2023 "literally in [Vidales'] front yard."
Next, they hosted a pop-up bagel sale by her father's RE/MAX office off Central Avenue. The first, more formal pop-up for Bagelero was with Sagrado Galleria.
Orozco has an architecture degree and had a job in his field for a few years before he started to feel like he wasn't fulfilled creatively.
"It's funny," he says, "My dad is a baker from Mexico who always wanted to be an architect and didn't have the opportunity to go to school and study it. I ended up going to school and studying it, and now I'm a baker, too."
Vidales' degree and first career path was in healthcare. She says their backgrounds are a big part of why the duo works. They have a lot of different skills and areas of expertise that they use to build their business.
"We also feel very lucky," Vidales says, "we have supportive families and don't have children yet so we can fully focus on the business. We have our degrees and are proud of those and feel excited to put so much time and heart into Bagelero. We are doing something we love."
What exactly is a 'South Phoenix bagel?'
When they hit the kitchen, crafting the perfect bagel wasn't as easy as the couple initially thought. Bagels are first boiled before they are baked."In the beginning, our bagels just sunk to the bottom. We just used household ingredients and it wasn't working. We invested in better ingredients and focused on traditional high-gluten flour, barley malt, and rolling our bagels rather than reinventing the wheel. We... can infuse our Mexcian heritage into the recipes with some of our signature bagel flavors," Orozco says.
The jalapeno cheddar bagel was what started it all and is their top seller. Recently, the couple says pizza bagels have also gained popularity.
Orozco thought of the name Bagelero while brainstorming ideas at his architecture job. Vidales credits him with a lot of the artistry and architecture at the heart of the business.
"Pablo built the Bagelero cart all by hand himself," she says. "We were both inspired by Mexican-style street carts you would see that have things like ice cream and street corn."
Orozco added that, as a boy raised going to lowrider car shows and in the Chicano community, he is especially pleased that the Bagelero cart has lowrider wheels to give it a little extra flair. The eagle logo is inspired by the Mexican flag.
Orozco and Vidales call their style South Phoenix bagels because that's where they started. But they soon outgrew the kitchen at their South Phoenix home. In November, Bagelero moved operations to a commercial kitchen where they churn out about 40 dozen bagels a week. They aren't trying to copy other styles or compete with East Coast bagel shops. Instead, the pair are creating something uniquely Arizona.
The flavors and toppings available at Bagelero rotate. The most popular is jalapeno chedar.
Bagelero
What flavors are on the menu?
A plain bagel costs $4 and for a dollar more, customers can add cream cheese and get it sliced and toasted. The cream cheese is classic Philidelphia."Of course, we tried to make our cream cheese," Vidales explains, "we wanted it to work, but we don't want to serve something that isn't perfect. We love Philly cream cheese and a lot of other great bagel companies use it too. We are not trying to bite off more than we can chew."
A half dozen bagels are $20 and a full dozen is $36. Rotating freshly squeezed juices, made with fruit from the Orange Patch, are $5 each.
Orozco's current favorite flavor is the pizza bagel with oozing cheese and pepperoni, while Vidales favors the signature jalapeno cheddar with crispy peppers that pack a bit of a punch.
"All of the bagels are the same base batch," Orozco says. "Some other people mix in everything but we don't do that. We put the ingredients on top to really let the bagel shine. It takes more time than a plain bagel or a seeded bagel."
Flavors vary and Bagelero likes to switch it up so be sure to check for any new flavor announcements on their social media accounts.
"We just started messing with a new flavor because we noticed fresh Rosemary growing in our yard. What to pair with rosemary? We settled on garlic and parmesan and we love it," says Vidales, who came up with the idea.
For best storage, Bagelero recommends keeping bagels in a ziplock bag. They last about three or four days without being frozen.
"My mom sometimes leaves them out longer by accident and she just sprays them with a bit of water and puts them in the oven for a little while and they are good as new," Orozco advises.
Where to find Bagelero
To best way to find out about Bagelero's latest updates is on Instagram and TikTok. They also have a web store where customers can pre-order. "We really started by word of mouth and just posting 'Bagel' signs on the street leading up to where we were selling in the beginning," Orozco says, "but after just deciding to go for it and reach out to food influencer Senor Foodie on social media and asking if he wanted to come to try our bagels, we didn't expect him to respond. When Senor Foodie came and loved Bagelero and hyped us up, it gave us a boost we are super grateful for."
The weeks following the collaboration led to lines down the street. Local food influencer Bryan Soto who runs Senior Foodie has some major pull at over 80,000 followers on Instagram and was a great supporter of Bagelero's success early on.
As the business grows, the couple is excitedly planning a future of farmer's markets and food festivals. Bagelero plans to continue having about two sales every week and presale options as well.
"Pablo preps the dough which has to sit for 48 hours. All of Friday, he will be spending about five and a half hours prepping the dough. We start baking on Sundays before we go live, around 3 a.m. and then the sales start at 9 a.m. The commercial kitchen has been so great. We feel ready to do more and we learned so much in such a short time," Vidales says.
As far as location and traveling around the Valley goes, "most of the time, you'll find us pretty close to our home area around Central Avenue, but we are going to some new spots such as Tempe and downtown Phoenix," Vidales says. "We want to spread Bagelero all over. We've gotten a lot of inquiries for wholesale that we are in the process of working towards."
Orozco adds, "How great it would be to be able to go to local coffee shops and cafes and see our Bagelero bagels being sold? We feel like we are moving closer to that goal."
