Tucson’s award-winning Barrio Bread is coming to Phoenix, allowing Valley residents to get a taste of the company’s beloved bread locally for the first time.
Beginning this September, Barrio Bread’s celebrated owner and founder, Don Guerra, will begin making trips from his bakery in Tucson to the new Hayden Flour Mills Gilbert location, where he will take over the kitchen every Tuesday to bake his famous sourdoughs, baguettes and other baked goods.
As a James Beard award winner for Outstanding Baker, Guerra’s breads are widely known in Arizona and even celebrated across the nation, but the baker has always kept his products grounded in his Arizona roots, using locally-sourced ingredients and natural leavening.
Having grown up about a mile away from the original Hayden Flour Mills location, Guerra is a long-time supporter of Hayden products and has formed a close relationship with the mill throughout his time at Barrio Bread, including having his own signature Hayden Flour Mills flour blend.
Now, the Tempe native has the opportunity to return home to sell fresh baked bread at the mill’s new Gilbert location, which will house a mill, kitchen, warehouse, offices and a customer pick-up area where customers can grab their Barrio Bread items that they reserved online.
The Gilbert menu will feature Guerra’s beautifully-baked breads, as well as Barrio Bagels, a new menu item that Guerra developed with Neal Borenstein, owner and founder of local deli Chompie’s.
The “Sonoran-style” bagel uses concepts from both Chompie’s and Barrio Bread, including Hayden Flour Mills’ Sonoran white wheat and natural leavening, plus no added oils or sugars. Each bagel is mixed, boiled and par-baked at Chompie’s and then handed over to Guerra to finish baking. Barrio Bagels, which debuted in plain, sesame and everything seasoning at a pop-up early this month, will continue to be sold at pop-ups and at the Hayden Flour Mills in Gilbert.
The full Barrio Bread menu within Hayden Flour Mills, located at 932 N. Colorado St., Gilbert, Ariz., will be available on Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. starting this September.
