A Bagel Shop Closed, and the Upper West Side Is Absolutely Losing It

In the vast constellation of New York City bagel shops, Absolute Bagels on the Upper West Side has held a lofty but unusual position of honor.

Famous among bagel aficionados as a keeper of the flame lit by the original bagel makers of the Lower East Side — hand-rolled, kettle-boiled, oven-baked, always fresh — the shop was founded in the early 1990s by Samak Thongkrieng, a Thai immigrant who learned his craft at the venerable Ess-a-Bagel.

Even as the nondescript storefront became an unlikely TikTok destination, Absolute Bagels kept no social media presence of its own, had no website, did not deliver and accepted only cash.

But as anyone could see from the lines up and down the block on the weekends, Absolute was among the most popular bagel places in New York.

Then, on Thursday morning, tragedy. A piece of paper haphazardly stuck to the door with packing tape spelled out the sad news in bright red letters: “WE ARE CLOSED.”

And lo did a cry of anguish rise from a stretch of Broadway between West 107th and 108th. It spread quickly to West Side Rag, the local news site that broke the bombshell news on Thursday morning, and then downtown, on to Brooklyn, to New Jersey, and to bagel lovers everywhere.