Story updated Tuesday, April 15, at 4:30 p.m.
By Gus Saltonstall
This is not a drill.
Signage went up Monday night for the “New Absolute Bagel” at the former Upper West Side home of Absolute Bagels, and the broker of the commercial space confirmed to West Side Rag that a “lease had indeed been signed by a bagel group.”
The new signage at 2788 Broadway, between West 107th and 108th streets, also includes the word “reopen.” While it is the same neighborhood storefront, the new “Absolute Bagel” name is noticeably slightly different than Absolute Bagels.
The broker, Rafe Evans, added on Tuesday morning that the new owners are a group of partners who own a small number of bagel stores in New York and New Jersey, but are “not household names.”
The new ownership group also has no connection to the Thongkrieng family that ran Absolute Bagels for decades, according to Evans.
West Side Rag visited the storefront multiple times on Tuesday, first from 8:30 to 10 a.m., and the second from 2:30 to 4 p.m., hoping to speak with anybody inside, but the business was fully locked and nobody answered repeated knock attempts on both visits.
“It made me smile and go, ‘is this for real?'” an Upper West Sider who chose not to provide her name told the Rag as she walked by the new signage on Tuesday. “They were my favorite bagel place for 40 years. I’ve had to walk five extra blocks since they’ve closed for my breakfast.”
The woman was one of multiple people WSR witnessed audibly exclaim with some sort of excitement while walking past the business on Tuesday morning.
“I was curious if it had a connection to the old owners,” Mark, who declined to give his last name and runs the Crown Machines Services store on the same Broadway block, said. “Either way, I hope they do well. It’s better for the street when businesses are open.”
Absolute Bagels closed in December 2024, as first reported by West Side Rag, after serving customers at the location for more than 30 years. Sam Thongkrieng, the founder and owner of Absolute Bagels, decided to shutter the business after a failed health inspection.
Thongkrieng never issued a statement or spoke to press about his specific reasons for deciding to close, but employees and the broker for the property described the choice as “out of the blue.”
We will continue to work to gather more information about the new Absolute Bagel venture.
Please check back in for updates.
Read More:
- UPDATE: UWS Absolute Bagels Closing Confirmed: ‘It Was a Bombshell’
- Upper West Side Reacts to the Cataclysmic Closure of Absolute Bagels
- A Conversation With Longtime UWS Absolute Bagels Manager: ‘I’m Heartbroken’
- UWS’ Absolute Bagels Line Changes Direction
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“the broker of the commercial space at 2788 Broadway, confirmed to WSR on Tuesday morning that a “lease had indeed been signed by a bagel group””
First page, above the fold
First page above the fold! Sandro, I love it.
This is great news. I hope a new bagel store opens there.
“A bagel group” You gotta love broker-speak.
A dozen, in common parlance
This is an important story!
a “bagel group”? could a “bakery category” or a “coffee type” be far behind?
It’s the same group that reopened the department store, New Gimbel.
This is intriguing. As a fan of the original, but who was totally grossed out by the multiple health code violations that were evidently ignored for years, I grudgingly but firmly condoned its shuttering. I’ll await to see sterling inspection results before sampling the New Absolute Bagel(s) offerings. (By the way — are they keeping the plural Bagels from the original name — doesn’t look like it!)
It’s the new bagel singularity. They’re one-upping (or downing} PopUp Bagels, and will offer only one flavor each day and you can only buy one at a time.
World’s most obvious business opportunity.
Oh I wish them luck, cleanliness, and great bagels! If they manage that they will be a great success!
Without a gut renovation of the premises, what’s really going to change?
People cleaning it?
If there were problems with roaches and or rats, the issue isn’t cleaning: how were they getting in? There needs to be some serious work done there, and perhaps they have done it.
this is great news for morningside heights and for the people who work at absolute. i hope they are all back when it reopens.
It’s rumored that Absolute Bialy’s will be opening next door:
I wish
Why isn’t pop up bagels opening a second UWS store?
Why? Their bagels aren’t any good and their purchase structure is bonkers. I don’t want their cream cheese! (Or their bagels, for that matter)
Now, if Ess-a-bagels opened an UWS location…!
The smart move would be for the new owners to hire the old staff. They will know the recipes and time honed techniques.
That would be brilliant because 1. we all want those bagels recreated and 2. those employees were out on the street! Please hire them back!
And keep the place as dirty as it was, which led to it being shut down, no thanks …
Let’s hope that they totally gut reno this place since just by thinking one time about why they closed in the first place (and for the same reasons in the past) combined with the er, reproduction that has got to have been going on in there since the closure, is well, let’s just say not exactly appetite-inducing.
Okay—I just hope to not see you complaining when they reopen with higher prices!
Wondering if they will be as good as the Old Absolute. Without the secret recipe, how could they. be? That said, my heart leaped at the news!
We need seats! somebody tell them to put some seats in.
It’s s pretty small space. They had some tables before the lockdown, but they never returned.
I’m still waiting for New La Rosita.
It’s about the Bagel not the name
The new Outside pizza is very good.
A bit cruel that all this great news is breaking during Passover week when many are craving any kind of bread!
And the rats in the neighborhood rejoice!
I feel like we are being shepherded into something. This is Not Absolute Bagels. The New Silver Moon is Not Silver Moon. Please stop prevaricating. These are New companies that are feeding on your nostalgia. Making the Upper West Side Great Again. Wait and see before you embrace a promise.
Right, and H&H Bagels closed a long time ago.
But unlike the new Silver Moon, which is a known quality since it’s the Buttercup owners opening it, why not wait and see about the new Absolute,. Perhaps it’s the woman who ran Lenny’s on Broadway and 98th Street. She closed because of a rent increase. Her bagels were very good, not quite as good as Absolute but better than anything else on the UWS.
I hope the new bakery is better than Silver Moon, which was mediocre, although it wads the best we had on the UWS.
Grandaisy, which still exists but on on the UWS, was excellent.
Enough already! Don’t we have more important issues on the UWS than bagel stores closing and opening? Yes, it’s sad when a beloved local store or restaurant closes (Pricewise Discount, Williams Chicken, Teachers and many others) but let’s move on, folks.
Sounds like a scam & misleading to me.They are hoping that everyone one will think it’s the same business in a newly renovated store. Absolute Bagels was always at the top of the lists for the best bagels in Manhattan. Unsuspecting tourists & locals will be lining up to get their bagels. Let’s hope they are not disappointed.
Hark, it’s The Original New Ray’s Absolute Bagels!
It was an all cash place. Through the years they got in trouble about not keeping good books, not paying all their taxes. I used to ask the lady are you paying your taxes when I’d whip out my cash and she’d give me a really dirty look. Couldn’t keep the place clean and didn’t pay their taxes… How did they last so long?
Ben kapinski,
It’s hard to keep the walls and windows of a real bagel bakery clean, because real bagels are boiled in water that has caustic lye in it. This is separate from any health code or sales tax violations.
Edit: autocorrect changed schmear to schmere.
Maybe she gave you a nasty look because whether they were paying their taxes is an issue between them and the tax man and had nothing to do with your bagel and schmere?
But why should they accept credit cards? They had a line out the door and down the block of people wanting to pay cash, and credit card processors charge 4%+ for cc processing. So they either lose money or raise prices if they accept credit cards. So why do it?
I absolutely loved this place. So much so that I used to order a bunch of bagels and take into the office. If the workers say that the decison to close down was out of the blue, then I can only guess that the original owners took the money to be bought out.
I can only hope and pray that the family sold the bagel recipe too🙏🏾