A bag of bagels — some say the best in the city — from Absolute.
Photo: Melissa Hom
The Upper West Side’s Absolute Bagels is no more: On Thursday, the neighborhood blog West Side Rag reported that the shop was likely closed, citing conversations with employees. This immediately set off alarm bells among neighbors. “Do you know anything about this?” one texted me. “I’m crying.” When I asked another if he’d heard the news, he wrote back, “oh my god, oh my god.”
The suddenness of the closing — why wasn’t there an announcement? — has people wondering what’s going on. Some initially theorized it has to do with the Department of Health, and indeed a December 11 report reveals the shop received 67 points for violations that included “evidence of rats or live rats,” “live roaches,” and “pesticide not properly labeled or used by unlicensed individual.” (At least they were trying to do something about the roaches and the rats?) The Rag confirmed the closing yesterday with the building’s real-estate broker, Rafe Evans, who told them that the shuttering came “out of the blue.”
Around 3 p.m., when I stopped by, the metal gate was almost fully down and a “we are closed” sign was taped to the front. A small crowd had gathered, seemingly on the verge of rioting. Some were kneeling down, asking the workers inside what was going on. At one point, an employee started handing out small bags of bagels. “It’s an absolute shonda!” an older woman with a petite dog yelled. “This is Trump’s America.” One employee, who only gave his first name, Jose, said that the owner had repeatedly said the store was going to close but people told him not to.
Absolute Bagels was opened in 1992 by Sam Thongkrieng, who came to New York in 1980 and learned the trade at the famous Ess-a-Bagel. He was one of a number of Thai immigrants who ended up in the bagel business during the 1990s, many of them after the Thai government sent members of Local 338, the bagel union, over to Thailand to train locals. Absolute Bagels is maybe the most visible and famous piece of this particular moment in New York food history — but it’s also a great place to eat. Depending on whom you ask, Absolute Bagels is either the best bagel shop in New York or one of the best bagel shops in New York. There was nothing fancy about it: Its charm came from its complete lack of frills, and also the fact that you could get a Thai iced tea.
As the quality of bagels around the city declined, it was held up as a place that preserved what still feels like a disappearing tradition. In 2003, Ed Levine called Absolute’s bagels “something near perfection” and the minibagel “a perfect simulacrum of the 1950s New York bagel.”
Ethan Levenson grew up a few blocks away and cannot recall a time before Absolute Bagels. He knew that to get the full experience, one needed to “submit to the rhythms of the shop,” even if that meant ordering a sesame when you really wanted an everything. “There was a certain level of spontaneity and roulette-ness to the shop that I’d let dictate my experience,” he says. “I’d ask the person, ‘What’s the hottest?’ Because to toast an Absolute bagel would be a travesty, a shonda.”
What Levenson liked best about Absolute, he says, is the rate at which they turned out the bagels: “There’s no bagel like it, it’s kind of undersized, it has a certain elasticity and bounce. I think it just traps heat really well.” He adds, “People talk about delicious food, like when you’re in Mexico City, you just inhale the tacos. There’s some quality to an Absolute bagel where it just warrants inhalation.”
Yesterday afternoon outside the store, despite the sharpness of the whipping wind, people kept stopping to linger and ask what was up. One customer, who identified himself as Mark and has lived in the neighborhood since 1977, said he couldn’t remember when he started going to Absolute. “I come here and get two plain bagels — because I don’t like them to sit and I live five blocks away — every other day,” he says. “If it’s the Health Department, I can’t buy it.”
Another local, Jane, came over to join the conversation. She said she’s lived in the neighborhood for 20 years. “I come here once a week for a bag of bagels. It’s a loss.” But she knows that — whatever the reason for the closing — that feeling of loss is, to some degree, the price of living in the city. “What are you going to do?” she sighed. “You live in New York, you’re used to it.”
