From Pizza Oven to Bagel Empire: Bubbe’s Tucson Story

The story of Kyle Leuer and Becca Groff, the couple behind Bubbe’s Fine Bagels, might have been ripped from a romcom script: boy meets girl in college, they bond over a fondness for good food, and, within six months, they embark on a culinary enterprise that succeeds beyond their wildest dreams. 

It was “beshert”: meant to be. Kyle grew up in the suburbs outside of Chicago, where non-chain bagel shops are common. Becca, born and raised in Tucson, often went with her parents to visit her grandma – her bubbe – in Boston, where she savored warm bagels and other Jewish comfort carbs. They were both sad that there were no locally owned bagel shops in town to provide them with the same nostalgic – and delicious – experience.

Kyle, who was working at Pizza Luna at the time, had an idea.

Bagels Hot from the…Pizza Oven?

“I started experimenting after hours at the pizza shop, making bagels,” he said. “They weren’t very good at the beginning, but I would bring them back to Becca, and she would give me feedback.” 

As his skills improved, Kyle suggested to Marc and Tracy Frankel, Pizza Luna’s owners, that they introduce a bagel concept in the morning while still offering pizza for lunch and dinner. “Long story short,” he said. “Pizza Luna ended up closing during the pandemic, and Marc and Tracy were still very interested in doing bagels, so we opened up Bubbe’s right next door to the existing Pizza Luna.” 

That was October 2021. The original location currently sits at 1101 N. Wilmot Rd. The couple opened a second store in Joesler Plaza at 1745 E. River Rd. less than nine months later, and they plan to open a third location next summer at 2932 E. Broadway Blvd.

Becca still sounds a bit dazed by it all.

“We really didn’t know what we were doing,” she said. “We were both in our early 20s. It ended up being a lot more popular than we could have ever imagined. Here we are now, four years later, with two locations and a third one on the way.”

New York, New York

Their success was no fluke. Word soon got out that Bubbe’s bagels had passed muster with Tucson’s many hard-to-please East Coast transplants (raises hand). 

Kyle explained, “It was a lot of trial and error, a lot of late nights doing research, trying to replicate different aspects of bagels that I love: a really shiny exterior crust with micro blisters and a soft, chewy interior.”

It had the key characteristics of a classic hand-rolled and boiled New York bagel, but with a longer ferment time and with a sourdough, rather than yeast, base. “I think sourdough adds a bit more complexity,” Kyle said.

Friends and family members, who were were happy to be test subjects, agreed. So, in the long term, did a wide range of discerning fans. This past June, Bubbe’s made the list of Yelp’s Top 50 Bagel Spots in the U.S. and Canada, one of just three in Arizona and the only one outside Greater Phoenix to earn that honor. 

Beyond Bagels: Barbra, Bialys, and Schmears 

To invoke the “haimish” (warm and cozy) atmosphere of her bubbe’s home in Boston, Becca decorated the bagel shops with such iconically Jewish-coded items as a picture of Barbra Streisand, a Passover Haggadah, and a set of silver shabbos candles, along with more generic nostalgia-evoking pieces like mismatched mugs and a Better Homes & Gardens cookbook. 

Bubbe’s bagel flavors range from the classic – plain, sesame, garlic, onion, poppy, everything – to the more adventurous cheddar jalapeño and cinnamon crunch. Kyle enjoys experimenting with different recipes, so there are frequent specials, too. No surprise: The current offering is pumpkin spice. “The dough is a little bit softer because of all the pumpkin,” Kyle said. “It’s got a great pumpkin flavor.” 

The schmears – technically, spreads, but usually referring to cream cheese  – also range from the traditional scallions to the more offbeat honey lavender. “Some people love it, some not so much,” Becca laughed. “I don’t think we’ll ever be able to get rid of it. It has a cult following.” 

Another of Bubbe’s offerings with a cult – or at least a more limited –  following is the bialy. 

Not familiar with this bagel-adjacent item? Kyle hadn’t been either. “It was probably less than a year after we opened our first location,” he said. “And honestly, I had never even heard of a bialy, but our customers that were mostly retired people from the East Coast were desperate to get their hands on it.”

Bialys are airier than bagels, have a matte, rather than shiny crust, and, rather than a hole, feature a sunken center that is generally filled with caramelized onion and poppyseeds.

Kyle said, “Becca had looked up a recipe and I started playing around with it. The dough is pretty basic, flour, water, and salt, no sugar. The tricky part comes in how you form them and how you bake them. Each one gets hand rolled and then stretched out.” Because they are so labor intensive to make and they are not widely known, bialys are only available on Saturday and Sunday. 

Most of Bubbe’s business is takeaway. In addition to bagels, customers bring home spreads such as whitefish salad, tunafish salad, and different varieties of cream cheese. Those who opt to dine on the premises generally order sandwiches. Becca particularly favors the hearty cream cheese with lox, capers, tomato, and onion variety  – it’s open faced “for aesthetic reasons and because I like to eat the two halves separately,” she said – and she was surprised to discover that egg salad turned out to be one of their best sellers. 

Future Plans

There is not much room to sit in and around Bubbe’s first two locations: There are a few tables outside the original Wilmot and Speedway store and, in Joesler Village, a couple of tables indoors as well as some outdoors.

That will be remedied in the third location, slated to open next August on Broadway just west of Country Club.  

Becca said, “It’s going to be our largest space, 2000 square feet, which will allow us to have a larger inside dining area.” She added, “We’ll be better equipped to fulfill more online orders.  We’re going to have a larger oven and better mixers to continue to be able to produce more and more bagels as our popularity increases.”

She makes it clear that the more generous size won’t impact the atmosphere that was created from the start. Becca said, “It’s going to maintain the same very welcoming, warm environment.”

She is particularly excited about the location, on the newly designated Sunshine Mile: “Kyle and I both suffered through many years of the Broadway construction. Now we’re going to benefit from it.”

So will Tucson’s many bagel lovers, especially those who have a strong basis for comparison with the products of other cities.  Kyle said, “The greatest compliment we can get by someone that’s Jewish from the East Coast is, ‘Now when I want to travel back to the East Coast, I don’t have to bring home bagels with me.’”