CULTURE

BAGELS continued from FRONT

Quiroz herself was a regular before she began working at Biff’s one month ago.

“I would come here every single Sunday,” Quiroz said. “Everyone here was always nice, and I could see they were LGBTQ-friendly, which made me feel comfortable.”

What many students who rely on Biff’s may not know is how multifaceted its operation is. On top of baking enough bagels for themselves on a typical day, they provide bagels to other shops around town, including Kickstand Kafé, Bookmans and Campus Coffee Bean.

Kristina MacFarlane is the front of house manager at Biff’s Bagels. She said the typical prep shift begins at 5 a.m. The 60-gallon bagel kettle takes 30 minutes to heat up, and then the baker can begin to boil the bagels for the shift.

“Basically, just boil it until it’s soft as a baby’s butt,” MacFarlane said. “Then you just toss them on the trays, they bake in the oven for about 25 minutes, and then they’re just amazing and perfect.”

Most dough has to be proofed for 24 hours, so the person working the prep shift must also make dough throughout the day to prepare for the following day.

“The bakers have got to be on top of the dough, because all the different doughs are at different levels of proofing throughout whatever shift [they] might be baking for,” MacFarlane said. “On a day like Saturday in the middle of summer, they’re pretty much at the kettle all day long.”

Summer is Biff’s busy season, they usually get what MacFarlane calls “a winter lull.” In addition to locals and students who stay in town during summer, the shop gets a lot of tourism traffic.

This year, though, she said she is not sure a winter lull is coming.

“Because of the mountain, we get a lot of ski traffic, which is fun because they come in and order their breakfast, but then they also order their lunch,” MacFarlane said. “So it’s a bunch of really big orders.”

At the same time, this past summer, the line was almost always out the door and around the corner to Brew and Cues next door.

Quiroz said it struck her that everything — namely, the cream cheese, hummus and bagels — was made from scratch when she started working at Biff’s.

“I guess I should have known because they taste so good,” Quiroz said. “When I started working here and I saw how much work goes into just one day at Biff’s, it’s kind of insane that we’re able to pull that off.”

In the future, Biff’s fans can look forward to potential expansion.

“We just bought a food truck,” Postlewait said. “We haven’t done anything with it yet, but we’re trying to find a home base for it.”

He said they are looking into expanding into a warmer climate soon; Sedona and Phoenix are contenders. Until then, Biff’s Bagels remains a Flagstaff exclusive experience, available only to lucky tourists, locals and students.