2788 Bagels
The bagels here are small, dense, craggy and a little sweet. That puts this counter on the old-guard side of the argument the city has been having about bagels. Sonal Shah rated the reboot 8.4 in March 2026.
Why go
Absolute Bagels closed at this address after failed health inspections in late 2024. A different operator reopened the same shop in December 2025. Sonal Shah found fake plants along one wall, shiny tiles and a basket of decorative rainbow bagels on a window counter. The cash-only rule went and a card reader arrived. Most of the counter staff came back.
Shah's account of the bagels is the reason to go. The counter bakes them fresh through the day, and the staff pull them warm from the baskets.
The new wave bakes the opposite bagel. Apollo comes from the sourdough pizza cooks at Leo, and its bagels are tangy, close to a sourdough roll, and divide purists. Popup will not sell you a single bagel, and Bryan Kim's Infatuation guide now calls the product good and short on flavor. Utopia in Whitestone is the other old-guard answer, baking since 1980, chewy without being dense and well inflated without being huge.
Sam Thongkrieng founded the shop that used to be here, after years at Ess-a-Bagel. That story belongs to the business that closed.
Order this / avoid
- Order: an everything with scallion cream cheese, untoasted. The bread is moist enough to hold the fillings without toasting, and the full house build adds nova, tomato and onion.
- Order: the egg bagel, which is soft and nearly marshmallowy, and a Thai iced tea with it.
- Avoid: the pumpernickel if you want rye character. Shah notes it does not taste strongly of it.
What locals & experts say
- Sonal Shah, The Infatuation, 12 March 2026, at 8.4:
If you've been coming here for years, expect a blissful flashback when you bite into the garlicky everything bagel with scallion cream cheese.
1 - Bryan Kim's bagel guide, on the shop it replaced: the original
closed in late 2024.
3
Good to know
- Paying: cards now.
- The name: it changed from New Absolute Bagels to 2788 Bagels after a threat of legal action, so you will see both.
- Jeff put this on the list himself, 3 September 2026.
Jeff's take (his words)
Not on Jeff's saved list. He named the place on 3 September 2026, in the paragraph he wrote on what New York is to him, and asked for it.
Verdict
should-visit — Buy the whole sandwich. A plain bagel and butter will not tell you much.