PopUp Bagels Arrives on the UWS, Disrupting the Traditional Bagel Order

Text and Photographs by Daniel Krieger

There are bagels and then there are bagels, and across New York City the options are as plentiful as opinions about them. Now, there’s a new kid on an Upper West Side block, disrupting the traditional bagel order. It’s PopUp Bagels, which opened its second Manhattan location on the corner of West 76th Street and Columbus Avenue last Sunday.

Within an hour of opening at 7 a.m., the line outside is a dozen deep. A few customers know what they are in for, but many are newcomers, like Dave and Duncan, two local dads with their kids, who are patiently waiting.

“We’re very excited to have a new bagel shop in the neighborhood,” Duncan tells WSR. “We’ve traveled far and wide for bagels and we’re here today because it’s rumored to be very good.” Dave adds: “As a bit of a bagel connoisseur on the Upper West Side, I’m curious to know if this is the new best bagel.” 

Working his way down the line is a staff member in a navy PopUp Bagels hoodie taking orders, the first step in a streamlined process that ends when you receive a signature brown paper PopUp Bagel bag. His job is also to acquaint the uninitiated with how things work: the minimum order includes three bagels and a tub of schmear, which you choose from several options, all for $12.

A woman with a dog seems distressed when confronted with this unique setup. “I don’t know what to do with my life now,” she tells him. “I came by for one bagel.” She ponders this before going ahead with the order.

A short while later, a man emerges, brown bag in hand. He stops to chat with an acquaintance and raves about the bagels. Identifying himself as Scott, he tells WSR that he first discovered PopUp a few years ago at BagelFest in Brooklyn (where it won best bagel twice). And then last year, when the first New York shop opened on Thompson Street, he and his kids traveled downtown expressly for it. 

“We’re happy that they’re here now on the Upper West Side,” he says, where he feels there aren’t enough bagel stores in certain pockets, like the West 70s. Asked how he would describe PopUp’s bagels, he offers this: “They’re a bit smaller, they come out fresh and hot, and they’re consistently delicious. I would rank them among the top three in the city.” 

Outside the shop, about 90 minutes after opening, the crowd is growing and PopUp’s CEO and founder, Adam Goldberg, is circulating, jotting down orders. He is wearing a white cap and a blue hoodie, both of which say “not famous, but known,” the brand’s tagline. The Columbus Avenue store is PopUp’s seventh, with three more on the way. When a woman asks Goldberg if this is indeed a pop-up, he tells her: “This is permanent. We thought of changing our name to ‘permanent bagels,’ but it didn’t sound as good.”

Goldberg is an unlikely bagel entrepreneur, though he has always been entrepreneurial, he says. Four years ago, he was a flood mitigation specialist, with no background in baking, who started dabbling in bagels during the early days of COVID. They turned out so well that he created a pop-up business and the demand grew to the point where he opened his first store in March, 2021, in Westport, Connecticut, where he lives. He plans to expand to about 25 shops by the end of next year, he says, and eventually to 150 to 200 PopUp Bagels across the country.

A man greets Goldberg and tells him he saw Seth Rogen waiting on line at the Thompson Street shop. He then says he has been “watching and waiting” for this PopUp to open in the spot where he thinks his bank used to be. Asked for his thoughts on PopUp, the man tells WSR: “This is going to be a game changer on the Upper West Side. There are a lot of bagel options in the neighborhood, but there aren’t any as good as this. And I eat a lot of bagels.”

Not everyone agrees with the fans of PopUp Bagels. Some people complain about their bagels’ alleged “inauthenticity” and even more about the business model.

One reviewer of the Columbus Avenue shop wrote on Google: “They are about half the size of a regular bagel, and lack the crust of an authentic bagel. They’re really more like bagel-shaped dinner rolls. No creative flavors or varieties either. Skip it.” Another wrote: “Way too expensive for bagels. The bagels are good, but I’ll never go back.”

In a heated discussion within the Upper West Side Together Facebook group that appeared a day after the shop’s opening, a number of commenters criticized the three-bagel minimum. One wrote: “I would like to have the option of buying ONE bagel! The three-bagel rule is a foolish mistake.” Another, also unhappy about the minimum, wrote: “I don’t get it. Zucker’s Bagels are 3 blocks away. They have good stuff and will sell you a single bagel. Even if their bagels are a bit better, why would I go?”

“There’s naysayers about anything you do,” says Goldberg, when asked about such complaints, all of which he has heard before. “Some of the best pizzas in the world are only sold by the pie,” he says, explaining that, after calculating and testing it, the three-bagel minimum with schmear is the only way “to keep the bagels hot and fresh all day as they are coming off the line. If I was selling individual bagels it wouldn’t work.”

 And as for authenticity, he doesn’t claim to make true “New York bagels.”

“We are PopUp Bagels,” Goldberg says. “This is what we think is a great bagel. We make it size appropriate with enough chew and no lead in the belly.” And then there’s the standout PopUp feature – his bagels are served “within 30 minutes of coming out of the oven,” he explains. Bagels older than that are put aside and used later for pizza bagels. “Most other bagels are not ‘rip and dip’ because most bagels are not hot,” he says. 

On the Upper West side, freshly made bagels abound, and if you time it right, you can sometimes get a hot bagel at some shops. But there is no other that guarantees to exclusively serve hot (or at least warm) out-of-the-oven bagels all day. Some aficionados will argue that until you have eaten a hot bagel, you have not fully experienced all that a bagel can be (though there seem to be many other people who are perfectly happy with bagels that have cooled off).

Later, Goldberg mentions that several hundred bagels sold in the first few hours.

“Word is out,” he says.

Two PopUp newcomers who have gotten word are Dirk and Lauren, a couple standing by the front door with a PopUp bag. They read about it online and live nearby.

“Look at the steam,” Dirk says as Lauren tears open a sesame bagel for their first ‘rip and dip’ (with dill pickle cream cheese). After finishing, Dirk says: “It’s everything you want in a bagel — crispy outside and soft and chewy on the inside. And warm!”

Let us know what you think in the comments.

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