Murray's Bagels
Murray's runs a deli counter behind the bagel case: salami, hot corned beef, chicken cutlets and fish salads, plus a club stuffed with an inch of chicken salad. Bryan Kim rates it 7.7 and says the bagel itself is nothing unusual. Come for the reuben.
Why go
It opened on Sixth Avenue in 1996 as a neighborhood shop, and Robert Sietsema and Nadia Chaudhury still name the specialty as substantial meat and poultry sandwiches.
2 Eater and The Infatuation cannot agree on the bagel. Sietsema and Chaudhury call it large but light
with a crackly crust and a modest chew; Kim, writing ten days later, calls it dense and well-browned, with a pleasant sort of memory-foam texture.
1 They agree on the queue, which is short-lived, and on what the shop is for. The Infatuation puts it in the honorable mentions and says why: twenty years ago it would have made the list outright.
Order this / avoid
- Order: a reuben, or the club with an inch of chicken salad in it. Kim names both.1
- Order, the classic build: Nadia Chaudhury's own is an everything bagel with scallion cream cheese, lox, tomatoes and capers, and no onions ever.2
- Avoid: judging it on a plain bagel with butter. That is the part Kim marks down.
What locals & experts say
- Bryan Kim, The Infatuation, March 2026, 7.7:
If you see a line at Murray's Bagel's, it's not because of TikTok. Open since 1996, the Greenwich Village shop doesn't offer any gimmicks, and it doesn't make a particularly unique bagel. What you come here for is convenience, consistency, and options to cover any scenario.
1 - The Infatuation's bagel guide, on why it sits in the honorable mentions:
if we were putting together this list 20 years ago, the Greenwich Village shop would've almost definitely made the cut. Even if they're no longer in the top tier, the bagels here are still solid and loveable.
3 - Nadia Chaudhury, Eater NY, March 2026, in her own author note: she is
a born-and-raised New Yorker whose go-to college shop was Murray's Bagels back when it was much smaller.
2
Good to know
- Booking: none. Counter service, and the line moves.
Verdict
could-visit — Two approved publications describe the same crumb in opposite terms ten days apart, Sietsema and Chaudhury calling it large but light with a crackly crust and Kim calling it dense with a memory-foam chew, and neither piece is old enough to explain the other away. Both agree on what the counter is for: Sietsema and Chaudhury name salami, hot corned beef, chicken cutlets and the fish salads, and Kim names the reuben, the BEC, kippered salmon and the chicken-salad club. Kim's 7.7 comes with the reason attached, which is that the bagel is not distinctive, and The Infatuation files the shop in its honorable mentions on the same grounds. Nadia Chaudhury's own note is the one piece of first-hand history, and it says the place was smaller when she was at college.