Apollo Bagels.

Apollo Bagels

An everything bagel with scallion cream cheese and tomato, open-faced, and a fifty-person line that takes about ten minutes to move.

Why go

Dominique Roy says something specific about the bake: a lighter, crispier bagel than the big sweet heavy version New York normally sells, off a short menu.2 His timing note does the rest of the work: the line can literally be 50 people long, but you wait 10 minutes, choose your bagel, and get it five minutes later. Eight doors now trade under the name and neither Roy nor Jeff picked one out, so this entry is about all of them.

Order this / avoid

• Order: Roy's, verbatim: "the everything bagel with scallion cream cheese and tomato, open-faced. It just looks beautiful. I like the whitefish salad too."
• Avoid: arriving in the afternoon. The East Village and Industry City doors close at 5pm and the Financial District door closes at 3pm Monday to Thursday.1

What locals & experts say

• Dominique Roy (Eleven Madison Park), 2026-08: My favorite is the everything bagel with scallion cream cheese and tomato, open-faced. It just looks beautiful. I like the whitefish salad too.2
• Roy again, on the queue: the line can literally be 50 people long, but you wait 10 minutes, choose your bagel, and get it five minutes later. He is the only voice on the record for this counter.2

Good to know

• The doors: East Village at 242 E 10th Street, Financial District at 41 John Street, Industry City at 268 36th Street in Brooklyn, Kips Bay at 416 3rd Avenue, Midtown at 224 W 35th Street, Tribeca at 121 Reade Street, West Village at 73 Greenwich Avenue, and one across the river in Hoboken.1
• Booking: none. Walk up and queue.

Verdict

could-visit — A lighter, crispier bagel than the sweet heavy New York standard, picked by the chef de cuisine at Eleven Madison Park, who orders it open-faced with scallion cream cheese and tomato. The queue is the reputation and it moves: fifty people ahead of you and you are eating in fifteen minutes. Eight doors and no one of them is the saved one, so a reader picks the nearest.