They are ‘Absolutely’ Back and Some Early Customers Say the Bagels Are Still ‘10 out of 10’

By Claire Davenport

Despite the morning drizzle, the sidewalk near Broadway and West 108th Street was bustling early on Monday, December 29. 

Upper West Siders flocked by the dozens to sample “New Absolute Bagels,” the new bagel shop at the famed 2788 Broadway location that was formerly home to “Absolute Bagels.” 

Monday was the informal opening of the updated shop, and to entice customers, the staff was offering free bagels (limited to around two-to-three a person) until they ran out (bagels were still being handed out three and a half hours after the store opened).

The very modest storefront of New Absolute Bagels belies the anticipation that greeted news of the opening. Reporters from Spectrum 1 and The New Yorker were on hand to record the big UWS event Monday morning. And according to a Facebook post by Upper West Sider Daniel Marks Cohen, by the time it opened at 8 a.m., the line of customers already stretched down the block, with folks arriving as early as 7 to snag the seeded breakfast favorites.

The mood was “joyful,” Cohen told the Rag in a phone interview. “Absolute returning gives people a sense of hope and renewal,” he said.

The new store shares the location and has a name nearly identical to the business it replaced (a temporary sign earlier called it “New Absolute Bagel,” but this morning a new banner proclaimed it plural: “New Absolute Bagels”). It also employs many of the people who worked in the original Absolute Bagels when it closed a little over a year ago after a failed Health Department inspection. The spot, which had opened in the 1990s, was a mainstay in the neighborhood, and the closure devastated Upper West Siders. 

According to previous reporting by the Rag, the owners of New Absolute Bagels have no connection to the Thongkrieng family, the owners of the earlier store, but are a group of partners who own a small number of bagel shops in New York and New Jersey.

One early riser, Richard Robbins, told the Rag over email that he’d arrived at 6 Monday morning, hoping that New Absolute Bagels would be open, but that no one was there yet. 

“I then drove past at 7:30, and there were half a dozen people outside. Unfortunately, I had to leave for a flight, so I couldn’t wait around and didn’t get the bagels,” he told the Rag in his message. 

All of the customers the Rag spoke with Monday morning were elated.

Longtime Upper West Sider Nat Lafa (order: onion bagel with cream cheese, double-toasted) told the Rag she was “so happy” the storefront reopened as a bagel shop. “I walk my boss’s dog every morning, and I love coming here with them,” she said. 

“Our building group chat was blowing up this morning about it,” said Rachel, who had come in with her daughter Annabel to check out the hype (order: two everything bagels with scallion cream cheese).

“These are the bagels I grew up on,” said Daniel Wittenberg (order: everything bagel with scallion cream cheese), who recounted coming to Absolute Bagels in middle school every day with his friends. He told the Rag they’re planning on having a reunion at the new spot. 

One shop visitor in full bagel regalia was Sam Silverman, the “Bagel Ambassador” for New York, whose company, BagelUp, produces New York’s annual BagelFest. 

Silverman recalled that when Absolute closed last December, folks wept. “People were sitting shiva for Absolute Bagels. That’s how meaningful it was,” he said. “It’s part of people’s identities and the identity of the neighborhood.”

And it wasn’t just the customers who were excited about Absolute’s return. 

“We’re so happy to be back,” said New Absolute Bagels staff member Addi, who told the Rag that she’d worked at the old Absolute Bagels before it closed.  

While some things about the new Absolute are different — the interior has been redesigned, the shop is no longer cash only, and there are now two registers instead of one — a manager named Amy said they tried to keep everything as true to the taste of the old Absolute bagel as possible. “It’s the same recipe,” she said.

And the early-bird customers seemed to agree: the taste was pretty much the same.

“You can’t exactly recreate perfection,” mused Cohen. “But they’re still fabulous.”

“We’re sooo back,” said local Dylan Pager after biting into his sesame bagel with lox spread. “We were so sad when it closed. I have an Absolute Bagel hat. I’ll be back tomorrow and Wednesday for sure.” 

“It tastes how New York is supposed to taste,” his friend Jacob, who was visiting from Chicago, added. 

Longtime Upper West Sider Hannah Tolan, age 31, said her cinnamon raisin bagel toasted with butter was “a 10 out of 10!” but that her real litmus test for whether they hold up to the original is how they freeze. 

“We used to buy two dozen and freeze them for months,” she said. But she was hopeful that they would live up to their predecessor after surveying the shop. “The scallion cream cheese looks the same. It’s comforting,” she said. 

And Wittenberg’s review of his everything with scallion cream cheese? “Fantastic. Maybe a little crunchier on the outside. But the real test will be when the egg bagel comes back,” he added. 

Luckily for Wittenberg, the New Absolute Bagels staff said the egg bagel will once again be available tomorrow, December 30. The shop will be giving out free bagels Tuesday and Wednesday. Then, after closing for New Year’s Day, New Absolute Bagels will officially open on Friday, January 2nd, according to staff.

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