When it came time to name their Geneva bagel shop launched a little over a year ago, Sara Parisi and her husband Joe had already secured permission to use Geneva Bagels before one of their two sons unexpectedly put his two cents in and gave the store at 501 E. State St. its name.
“Our son has been reading this children’s series of books called ‘The Bad Guys’ and there was a copy of one of the books sitting on the table,” Sara Parisi said. “My husband Joe saw it and said ‘What about Bad Guys Bagels?’ We asked a number of other family members and friends, and that’s what we went with.”
Joe Parisi said that “I’m normally pretty good at marketing and branding things like that and I just saw – when I said it for the first time, it just stuck.”
“A lot of people when they start companies they get stuck on a name,” he said. “All these little pieces that they teach you in college are important, but the reality is the business is all that really matters. Can you make something that people want – can you sell it, will they buy it, will they buy it again?”
Already entrepreneurs, the Parisis have been operating an online wedding favor company called Reception Flip Flops for 10 years that Sara Parisi said “was now on auto-pilot and we were looking for something else to do.”
The idea to open a bagel business fell to her husband, who said his passion for bagels was so great he and some buddies would drive all the way to Skokie in the middle of the night to get them.
“Bagels – we used to drive to Skokie at 2 a.m. and I’d do that after I met my wife. She didn’t think it was worth the trip. We had a few buddies and we’d go,” Joe Parisi said. “Here in the area, I’d drive to Jake’s in Aurora and other places. I wanted bagels and I couldn’t find them, and I figured maybe other people had this problem too. I saw this as an opportunity.”
Those late-night pilgrimages were to New York Bagel and Bialy in Skokie, where Parisi approached the owner about a deal involving the recipe it uses to make its bagels.
“I mean it was a once in a lifetime opportunity,” he said. “Not long after, he found out he was terminally ill. He said he didn’t have a lot of time and wanted to do a deal and leave his wife as much money as he could.
“We went down and did the deal and he taught us how to make bagels,” he said. “People love these bagels and we thought if it’s not broke, why fix it? We have a profit-sharing agreement with them, and we’re far enough away, there’s no competition.”
Sara Parisi said there are currently 13 varieties of bagels at the Geneva shop, “flavors based on pretty much what everybody has and expects to find.”
She said they are looking to try other flavors like asiago which some have asked for or perhaps consider producing a bagel of the month.
The local business community has welcomed the shop with open arms.
Paula Schmidt, president of the Geneva Chamber of Commerce, feels Bad Guys Bagels is a welcome addition to the local business scene, “with a name that’s kind of provocative.”
“They have been wonderful Chamber members and have been involved in a number of things and this was definitely a needed business here in Geneva,” she said. “You hear the name and I think it’s a fun name and makes you want to take a peek at it. It’s a unique name and makes them stand out completely.”
Emily Wrenn of St. Charles said she likes the breakfast and lunch options offered at the shop.
“I don’t know too many other places that are just specializing in bagels, which makes it super-fun and I love supporting local businesses,” she said during a recent trip to the shop. “My go-to is an everything bagel but I like the onion or the cinnamon raisin. I grew up on the East Coast, and I like that bagel sandwich in the morning.”
Sara Parisi said that East Coast transplants who have eaten New York style bagels “are the pillars of the business.”
“They knew the difference between ‘a roll with a hole’ and other names used to describe something that’s not a true bagel,” she said. “It has to be boiled and baked. Some today are using steam, but a true bagel is boiled and then baked. The true bagel is dense, but still soft on the inside and crisp outside.”
She said the shop currently produces 20 dozen bagels a day on weekdays and anywhere from 50 to 70 dozen on the weekend.
“We’ve never had lines out the door but things do get busy on the weekends,” she said.
With a little over a year in the business, she said the people she works with and the customers she meets make it all worthwhile.
“The thing I like, what I enjoy the most, is being around people. I like getting out of the house, because the online business was a lot of sitting at the computer,” she said. “We all love bagels. I make lunches for my two boys Luka, who is 6, and Joey, who is 9, and they love the bagels too. But I’m a people person and that’s what make this enjoyable for me.”
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
