New signage has gone up announcing New Absolute Bagel at the old location of New York’s iconic Absolute Bagels. (Joseph Strauss)

(New York Jewish Week) — It was a Passover miracle: A sign for a bagel shop had risen again outside the storefront vacated abruptly in December by Absolute Bagels.

“Reopen: New Absolute Bagel,” reads a banner outside the shuttered Broadway store. An image of a stack of two bagels, cream cheese spilling out their sides, appeared next to the words.

“Is it real? We need some investigative journalism!” one Upper West Side reader texted our staff as he passed the sign this week.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

Another Manhattanite and Absolute Bagels fan had a similar reaction. “Oh my god THANK GOD. Is it real? It’s like the actual same bagel place? I want THOSE BAGELS,” he texted, followed by a crying emoji.

Here’s what we can report: The sign first went up on Monday, according to the West Side Rag, but despite the name the new store does not appear to have any particular relation to the old one.

Absolute Bagels was founded in 1990 by Samak “Sam” Thongkrieng, a Thai immigrant to New York who earned his bagel stripes making the doughy Jewish bread at Ess-a-Bagel. Absolute Bagels, which was also known for its Thai tea, became a cult favorite in New York, and was frequently rated among the best bagels in the city despite its numerous health violations. Its closure in December sent New York into days of public mourning.

Exactly who has assumed the lease is not public. Rafe Evans, the broker for the building at 2788 Broadway, told the West Side Rag that the new tenants own a few bagel shops in New York and New Jersey but are “not household names.”

He said the new store won’t look like the old one.

“They are going to rebuild it from scratch,” Evans told Pix11 Wednesday. “They need everything. Floors, walls, ceilings, the works.”

Evans told Pix11 that the new sign had been a surprise to him, saying, “We were surprised to see they’re calling themselves the new Absolute Bagels. We do get why they’re doing that.”

But he said he does not know whether the name “New Absolute Bagel” will be sticking around.

“We don’t know what they’re going to call it — if that’s the name now or just a placeholder,” he told neighborhood blog I Love the Upper West Side. (He did not immediately respond to a New York Jewish Week request for comment.) “We just don’t know.”

Absolute Bagels isn’t the only beloved Jewish-adjacent bakery in its stretch of Broadway to be undergoing dramatic changes. Silver Moon Bakery, which was known for its challah, recently closed but is reportedly reopening in a new spot with the former owner’s equipment and endorsement.

New Absolute Bagel, or whatever it will be called, doesn’t seem to have as close a relationship to its predecessor — leaving uncertainty about whether the new bagels will taste the same as those they are replacing.

“Sam, the former owner, was asked if he wanted to sell his recipes,” Evans told Pix11. “And he said anyone can make a bagel.”

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’re near the end of our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we have a very ambitious goal of $127,000 by April 21.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Make a Passover Gift Today!

$90 $180

$360

Other amount