Photo: Jenni Spinner

JS: Can you please share the thinking behind the decision to go from buying and enjoying the bakery’s bagels, to selling them? 

SS: I had no intention of buying it. One day I went to pay my bill and the previous owner said, “I want to retire; you need to buy this. You’re the right person.” I was skeptical at first. But I saw unbelievable opportunity. The food was on the right path. The loyalty was there. What wasn’t there was infrastructure. The space was small and run down. Systems were outdated. The business wasn’t positioned for the kind of volume Las Vegas can generate. I don’t buy businesses to maintain them. I buy them to build platforms and build iconic brands. So we moved into a 10,000-square-foot flagship next to the new Las Vegas Convention Center. We recreated the menu, redesigned the atmosphere, and built what I believe an old-school delicatessen should look and feel like: authentic, energetic, and built for scale. 

JS: In those early days, what did you decide to change about the business, and what of the original biz did you want to keep? 

SS: We kept very few recipes and we kept the loyal customer base. That’s about it. Everything else you see today when you walk into Bagelmania was rethought: the look, the feel, the food quality, the baking processes, proprietary recipes, systems, kitchen flow, all of it. It wasn’t a cosmetic update. It was a rebuild with respect for the legacy. 

Courtesy of Siegel’s Bagelmania

Courtesy of Siegel’s Bagelmania

JS: Then, how has the bagel side grown and changed in the years since you took over until now? 

SS: Volume has grown significantly. We added locations and now serve people from all over the world. Being next to the Convention Center means millions of visitors get exposed to the brand. What changed wasn’t the idea of a bagel, it was the scale and the reach.

JS: Parallel to Bagelmania, you’re also growing a doughnut empire with Pinkbox Doughnuts. Please think back to the days before you launched Pinkbox, and why you decided to launch that business. There are a lot of doughnut slingers out there; please share what you thought Pinkbox could offer to customers that others might have been lacking. 

SS: There was something about the name and the logo that kept pulling me in. I kept staring at it and envisioning building a real brand around it. Not just a doughnut shop, a brand. From creative proprietary recipes to the design details in the shops to how we present ourselves on social media, everything was intentional. We built systems. We built a playbook. Several of our doughnuts are trademarked. A lot of doughnut shops sell doughnuts. We built a brand ecosystem around ours. 

JS: Overall, Pinkbox and Siegel’s Bagelmania seem to be inviting customers to join in on your sense of fun—could you please talk about the company’s personality and the thinking behind it? 

SS: Hospitality should never feel sterile—it should feel alive. At Siegel’s Bagelmania, the energy comes from tradition, nostalgia, and the warmth of a true New York-style delicatessen. At Pinkbox, it’s bold, colorful, and creative—turning a simple doughnut run into an experience. 

In both brands, that energy builds loyalty. Guests don’t just come for the product—they come back because of how the brand makes them feel. 

Behind the personality is serious operational discipline: recipe control, cost management, systems, data, and structure. The guest sees the fun. We run the infrastructure. 

Photo: Jenni Spinner

JS: Having visited your LVCC location, for sit-down and takeout, it’s great finding a place that feels like one of the Jewish delis back home in Chicago. Please share in your words what folks encounter when they walk in. 

SS: Siegel’s Bagelmania pays tribute to an old-school, family-centric dining experience with a modern twist. Guests are transported back to an iconic New York delicatessen the moment they walk through the door. As a result, Siegel’s Bagelmania has become known as a local favorite behind the glitz and glamour of the Strip, where the “who’s who” of Las Vegas, as well as tourists from around the world, gather to enjoy from-scratch recipes and house-made breads, bagels, and pastries. 

Photo: Jenni Spinner

JS: What types of products do you offer? Feel free to talk about everything from the bagels to the other classic baked goods in the case, to other items folks can either enjoy in the restaurant or take to go. 

SS: At Siegel’s Bagelmania, we offer a full menu with over 180 items, including breakfast classics and specials, traditional boiled bagels, house-made cream cheeses, bagel sandwiches, smoked fish, matzo ball soup, and a wide variety of lunch offerings. 

Our menu features both classic and signature deli sandwiches, along with house-made bakery items like rugelach and black-and-white cookies. Guests can dine in for the full delicatessen experience or order catering platters for large groups. We’re built to handle both with the same level of quality and consistency. 

Photo: Jenni Spinner

JS: Are the bagels and other items baked onsite, or at another location? Please share what you can about the recipes and the process. 

SS: Not only are our bagels made onsite in the traditional way of being boiled and then baked, but every item on our menu, including our bread and pastries, is house-made onsite. 

Photo: Jenni Spinner

JS: Does the selection of menu items stay the same year-round, or do you rotate/add seasonal items at different times? 

SS: Our core items always stay the same, we do introduce seasonal bagels, cream cheeses, and pastries though. 

JS: Please tell us about the lineup of doughnuts you offer at Pinkbox—it’s a pretty extensive array of flavors and fillings that greet visitors when they walk in. Also, how do you decide what to put on your permanent rotation, and what seasonal/LTO items to offer? 

SS: The permanent lineup includes more than 70 varieties of delicious doughnuts made fresh daily with high-quality ingredients. Each doughnut has its own creative recipe, design, and personality, including various one-of-a-kind creations. We also rotate various seasonal/LTO items throughout the year that our customers have come to love and look forward to annually, along with a featured Doughnut of the Month that highlights new flavors and creative concepts. 

We are also the official doughnut partner for the Las Vegas Raiders and Vegas Golden Knights, so we have several doughnut creations that pay homage to our local sports teams. We also like to come up with new ideas for doughnuts that reflect current trends or events. For example, we have offered special F1 doughnuts during race weekend, created unique Labubu-inspired doughnuts, celebrated the release of Taylor Swift’s new album with The Showgirl doughnut, and created our own Dubai Chocolate doughnut. 

Image courtesy of Pinkbox Doughnuts

JS: I have to ask about the Pooh doughnut and the variations—please tell us about what makes up the original Pooh, and how you have fun on seasonal takes, the Raiders version, etc. 

SS: The Pooh is a poop-emoji-shaped doughnut that has been a staple of the shop for years. Pooh is a glazed chocolate cake doughnut with chocolate buttercream, covered in chocolate frosting. It also has a sister poop-emoji doughnut, Pinky, a glazed vanilla cake doughnut with vanilla buttercream covered in pink icing. Pooh and Pinky are very popular, so we often dress them up to celebrate different holidays or events. 

Pinky has also evolved beyond just a doughnut into the official Pinkbox mascot, with larger-than-life Pinky statues inside our shops that create fun, Instagram-able moments and interactive photo opportunities for customers. The Pooh family has expanded to include Pooh, Pinky, Minty, and Veegee, as well as specialty versions like Raider Pooh and the VGK Knight. 

JS: Could you please share some of the recent doughnut innovations? How do you and your team brainstorm ideas, and then how do you decide whether an idea is worthy of being offered in your bakery case? 

SS: We are often inspired by recent trends, events, and pop culture. We also conduct tastings of new creations before debuting any new doughnut in our shops. Each month, we feature a Doughnut of the Month that is highly sought after, with customers eagerly waiting for each new release. 

JS: As the companies in your Amazing Brands stable grow, how are you approaching the need to add talent? Please feel free to share what you can about the challenges of finding and hiring folks that fit the bill. 

SS: Growth forces you to build real leadership depth and a strong culture to support it. We’re focused on experienced operators, strong financial oversight, disciplined culinary systems, and a culture of accountability and ownership. In our business, it’s harder to hire, develop, and retain great people, and build the right culture around them, than it is to open another store. That’s where we put our energy. 

JS: What do you think are some of the qualities that make someone best suited for joining the  Siegel’s Bagelmania/Pinkbox/Amazing Brands team? Feel free to share your thoughts about corporate offices and in-restaurant staff separately, if you feel that’s appropriate. 

SS: In-store team members, especially front of house, need strong, outgoing personalities that match our brands. We look for energy, confidence, warmth, speed, and a natural hospitality instinct. Our environments are lively and guest-facing, so personality matters just as much as consistency and execution. 

On the corporate side, we value an ownership mentality, systems thinking, operational discipline, and real comfort with accountability. We’re building operating companies, not lifestyle brands, so we look for people who want to build, improve, and scale something meaningful. 

Courtesy of Pinkbox Doughnuts

JS: Could you please shout out some of the people you feel have been helpful in fueling the success and growth of Siegel’s Bagelmania/Pinkbox along the way? 

SS: Our success is fueled by leaders who take ownership of their lanes. Operations leaders who protect standards. Culinary leaders who guard recipe integrity. Finance teams who enforce discipline and visibility. Growth only works when every function has strong leadership and clear accountability—that’s what allows us to scale without losing who we are. 

Courtesy of Pinkbox Doughnuts

JS: You’ve mentioned that the pandemic presented challenges and impacted your growth strategy—could you please share details about how you pivoted? 

SS: The pandemic forced clarity. We moved quickly, made hard decisions early, and focused on what we could control. We doubled down on operational discipline, protected our team, stayed close to our guests, and strengthened the channels that mattered most. 

Challenging periods don’t change your philosophy, they test it. For us, it reinforced the importance of staying focused on our employees and our customers. 

JS: Between the wholesale business, DIY decorating kits, and other innovations you came up with, could you please share how those quick-thinking moves helped you weather the storm? 

SS: We stayed focused on our core business and what Pinkbox does best. We protected the brand, leaned into our strongest products and kept our operational discipline tight. Staying in our lane, and executing it well, is what carried us through the period. 

JS: Congratulations on your recent acquisition of Piero’s—could you please share what you can/are willing to about your plans for that institution? 

SS: Piero’s Italian Cuisine is a true Las Vegas icon. My role is stewardship—to preserve the legacy, strengthen the operations, and make thoughtful, strategic upgrades without altering what made it special in the first place. You don’t modernize history for the sake of change. You protect it.

Photos: Jenni Spinner

JS: What’s next for Pinkbox and Siegel’s Bagelmania—please feel free to share what you can about planned product innovations, new locations (including and beyond the American Fork location opening in January), any intentions to expand to new states, maybe new wholesale/retail opportunities? 

SS: We’re continuing to grow both brands with discipline and intention. We’re expanding Siegel’s Bagelmania to a third location and our second flagship, opening this summer in Summerlin, Las Vegas. 

At the same time, we remain very focused on expanding Pinkbox Doughnuts but doing so in a measured and disciplined way that protects the brand and the operating model as we scale into new markets. 

Photo: Jenni Spinner

JS: Finally, do you have a favorite product? Feel free to name anything on either menu.

SS: Nothing goes on the menu without my approval, so if it’s there, it’s something I stand behind. At Siegel’s Bagelmania and Pinkbox Doughnuts, every item earns its place. If it’s on the menu, it’s a favorite.