The workday begins at 5:30 a.m. It is now late morning on a snowy day in Boulder, and Steve Pagnotta still has an energetic bounce in his step.
“I’m the late guy,” Pagnotta laughs, “but we are baking around the clock.”
A bagel empire, it seems, is a 24/7 proposition.
Pagnotta is general manager of Moe’s Broadway Bagel, which has eight locations in the Denver and Boulder area, and Pagnotta has already made stops at five of them.
“It’s a labor of love,” Pagnotta says. “I like moving and I like people. You know what I mean? I like being on the go and I’m never still.”
The bagel operation is very much a family affair. Pagnotta’s niece, Audrey, is behind the counter at Moe’s flagship on 2650 Broadway in Boulder. His nephew, Peter, is heavily involved in the operation.
Pagnotta’s sister, Patty Sherman, happens to be the co-owner. She pokes her head in through the back door, checking on a couple of items with her brother.
In 1992, Patty and her husband, John, founded the business in Boulder which is named after John’s grandfather, Moe.
“We are greater than the sum of our parts,” Pagnotta says.
To succeed in the bagel business, the family has had to evolve with the times.
As the COVID pandemic curbed in-store dining, bagel consumption took a hit, as it was rare to find consumers ordering a single bagel and cream cheese through mobile delivery.
Moe’s weathered that period and in the meantime grew a substantial wholesale market and a host of major corporate clients, like school districts, hospitals and hotels. Plus, a host of eateries throughout Denver.
“Of course,” Pagnotta says, “we cater to a lot of coffee shops in town who might act like the bagels are their own.
“They’re ours.”
The plain bagel, of course, is the most popular bagel. At Moe’s, next-requested is sesame and poppyseed, followed by what Moe’s calls its Italian Bagel, commonly referred to as the “everything” bagel.
Pagnotta is asked how many bagels a day Moe’s produces for the masses. His eyes bug out — not aghast at the attempt by an outsider to find out a sensitive business secret. Rather, Pagnotta, a former bar and restaurant owner in New York City, is simply filled with the excitement of considering an estimate that feels impossible to comprehend.
“Thousands,” he says.
“Thousands.”
Perhaps there’s an estimated number of bags of flour that Moe’s uses at its four Boulder locations, two in Denver, and one each in Louisville and Longmont?
“Thousands and thousands!”
What Pagnotta is more distinct about is Moe’s strict baking strategy, along with a nod to a geographic benefit.
“One of the things that makes us very fortunate is that the Rocky Mountain water and the water in the Adirondacks that supplies New York are extremely similar water, with very similar water mineral content and that sort of thing,” says Pagnotta.
“So, we have great water here, and that really helps to make great bagels, which are real traditional, classic bagels, New York style.
“It’s the original ancient recipe that goes back through (he laughs) ‘thousands’ of years.
“That’s the recipe, and then, it’s just technique in perfecting the dough and staying with tradition.”
There is one other ingredient, without the goal of sounding sappy:
“The number one ingredient is caring,” says Pagnotta. “I think it comes from the family thing and that extends to the customers and people we work with.
“Yeah. It’s more than a bagel.
“It’s like they say, it’s not bread alone.”
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