I have worked on W. 35th St. between Seventh and Eighth Avenues since 2015. Something strange has been happening over the last few years, and it feels like it’s accelerating.
In my first years here, directly across the street from my office was a small bagel shop, Best Bagels. Best Bagels was a narrow shop that could barely manage to fit their customers in the door. No seating, no inside eating. Most days, there was a line going 100 feet down the block. Even when it rained, customers would huddle outside chomping down their breakfast. When the storefront directly next door opened, Best Bagels immediately knocked the wall down, renovated, and expanded. The line, despite the additional space and seating, never got any shorter. They must’ve been doing even better business than before.
As a "business resident" of West 35th Street. I’m always looking for good lunch options. On the other side of the block at the other end of the street, there was a bodega/deli. I have to tell you, it did not seem very appealing to me. I’ve been in there two, maybe three times over the course of a few years. Mostly out of desperation for lunch variety. But I was never happy with the experience. It was not particularly dirty, and the service was not bad, but it just felt like one of the lousier options on the block. In a business gamble, the owners decided to shut down, gut renovate their space, and reopen as a bagel shop. Thus, Liberty Bagels was born.
Liberty Bagels is a very narrow bagel shop, which also commanded lines down the block. It hasn't appeared that Best Bagels has had much of a dent put in their business, as there are lots of hotels around and lots of tourists here for bagels. Liberty Bagels seems to have commanded their own audience and loyal fans with their rainbow bagel.
The Rainbow Bagel has been an Instagram and social media hurricane of business for them. Additionally, they give away free stickers with a picture of the rainbow bagel. Although I imagine it isn't their strongest form of marketing, the stickers are littered and stuck everywhere up and down the block, concentrating in density (to the point of every square inch of scaffolding support has multiple layers) as proximity to their shop increases.
As a reasonable and rational person, I know that a rainbow bagel is just a bagel with six types of food coloring in it. Not something I would want to put in my body. Bagels are bad enough for you as it is. Food coloring, while likely benign, still isn't an ingredient I believe enhances bread products.
On top of not understanding the demand for a multicolored bagel, I also personally cannot comprehend the demand for a "bagel breakfast sandwich". Bagels are jam-packed with sugary carbs. Why someone wants to put a breakfast sandwich, be it bacon, olive cream cheese, tuna fish, etc., onto a calorie bomb? In my opinion, those types of best breakfast sandwiches are best served on rolls
Anyways, for the past half of a decade, the bagel business has been strong. The tourists have been fed well and seem to love the carb-loading prior to a day of the most walking they've done in their lives. (Because of course, NYC's finest shopping: The Disney Store, The M&M Store, Macys, and, beyond bagel breakfasts, NYC's finest foods: Taco Bell, Red Lobster, The Olive Garden are best accessed by foot)
By the way, my bagel shop staple has always been a poppy bagel, toasted, with butter. And if that butter is unsalted, it’s all going in the garbage.
Recently, Liberty Bagel has opened a second location, not very far from their existing location. In fact, it’s literally right around the corner. I’m not certain if it is situated better or worse, being on the corner of Sevent Avenue. As a real estate broker, I know it's likely to have better foot traffic, but I should probably look up how much they’re paying for rent.
The thing about this neighborhood is we are jam-packed with buildings built in the 1920s/pre-war era. The retail spaces have traditionally been filled with fabric shops. Which I can’t imagine are doing that much business, but have locked in long leases at low rents. Where these fabric shops close up, because on lease renewal, landlords renegotiate at obscene amounts for their retail rent, new businesses come in. In fact, the retail space on the ground floor of my last office building could barely keep a tenant in there for more than six months. Every new business that came in, whether a pizza shop or a Greek restaurant, or an on-demand grocery delivery headquarters, or Indian food, or other south Asian restaurant, or Gyro shop, or candy and chips bodega, (literally every business that has occupied one of their 6 retail spaces since 2015) has overestimated demand and promptly given up and moved out.
However, in late 2025, a new bagel player, Apollo Bagels, opened up shop at the very high-turnover retail storefront and combined the space next door. A ballsy move, in my opinion, to be occupying such a large space right out of the gate. I have failed to mention that I’m speaking here only of "dedicated bagel shops," as there are numerous other food-serving establishments that also serve bagels in the morning.
I passed all four bagel shops this morning, a rainy Saturday around 9:30, and all were packed with lines down the street. Apollo too had one of the longest, with every square foot of the interior jampacked, most likely with tourists, dropping sesame seeds, charred garlic, capers, and their paper straw wrapper on the floor, while they chomp on their wildly overpriced, Instagrammable breakfast sandwiches.
So my question for you: are these bagel shops here to stay? Could West 35th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues become the "Bagel District"? Only five or six years ago, during the pandemic, did I fear that this block would never recover. It seems the one circular breakfast item that New York is known for is driving consumer demand and foot traffic, benefiting the whole block.
Will the tourists and locals consume enough bagels regularly to keep the trend alive? Or is what we are witnessing now the pinnacle of the bagel market, and is its sharp decline on the horizon?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments, and share with me your go-to bagel shop order.