Behind the Best Bagel in New York
An Interview with Joey Scalabrino, owner of Apollo Bagels.
Listen to the interview here—
When people think of New York City’s staple foods, the things we do better than arguably anywhere else in the world, they often list everyman staples like hot dogs, pizza, and bagels.
Last Friday I met up with a man who is responsible for perfecting the latter two of that trifecta: Joey Scalabrino, owner of Apollo Bagels. Let me set the scene—
It’s a hot Summer day in early August, and on a bustling West Village corner stands the new location of Apollo Bagels, nearly complete for its grand opening.
As I walk into the intentionally minimal space, there is an industrious crew, all dressed in Apollo Bagels tees and hats, at work putting together the final details.
Chefs in the back are meticulously shaping dough, then ensuring the entire surface area is covered in everything bagel seasoning.
Then off to the oven to get crisped to perfection, as is customary for any Apollo Bagel.
If you’re familiar with Apollo, you know how tough it can be to get your hands on one.
Lines at the East Village location have consistently gone out the door and down E 10th St since it opened in March.
While the bagels themselves warrant this insane demand, part of its success is undoubtedly attributed to the slew of TikTok and Instagram videos people eagerly post reviewing the admittedly aesthetic open-faced bagel sandwiches.
Apollo Bagels is the next evolution in a trend of a formerly pedestrian food being turned into a status symbol. Think of the $125 bagel tower at Sadelle’s, or Pop-Up Bagels, which received $8M in venture backing last Fall.
Bagel as a brand is here, but no one is doing quite as well as Apollo.
This hype cycle has its roots in the origin of Apollo Bagels, which began as a pop-up on the side of Scalabrino’s Williamsburg pizza restaurant, Leo.
As a way of mitigating losses during the pandemic, Scalabrino and his partner Mike Fadem, opened Apollo. After an initial success, the duo began to offer Apollo Bagels at pop-ups around the world: Paris, Ibiza, Quebec, and at Fanelli Cafe in SoHo.
Their global rollout and strategic collaborations built an initial hype akin to streetwear brands, amassing an impressive social media following and fans who equally love the bagels as much as they love the lore of the brand.
I had my first Apollo Bagel back in March, an open faced everything with cream cheese and a bright tomato, and instantly fell in love, making it a regular post-run, weekend staple.
Coincidentally, Scalabrino turned out to be a subscriber to Who Do You Know? (shocker, all of the coolest, most prolific founders and creatives also subscribe)
So when I saw Apollo was expanding to the West Village, I had to tap in with the bagel GOAT and get the scoop behind New York’s best bagel—
An Interview with Joey Scalabrino
Jake Bell: Can you give like a brief intro for people who don't know who you are and your background as like a restauranteur?
Joey Scalabrino: My name is Joey Scalabrino and I'm a born and raised New Yorker.
I opened a pizza restaurant called Leo like five years ago and Apollo Bagels maybe two years ago, but our first location opened March 1st of 2024.
JB: You guys started selling bagels out of Leo in 2020, then hosted pop-ups.
Tell me what kind of was that decision-making process to say we're gonna open a physical location in the East Village and now a second one here in West Village?
JS: I met some friends who have other hospitality businesses and we decided to become business partners and we thought there was room in the market for a new bagel place for the next generation, whether next generation New Yorkers or transplants and just wanted to try it out and, we didn't think the first one would be as successful as it was right off the bat.
We think there's this room in other neighborhoods in New York with so many people and it's a fairly affordable product that we try to make as best as possible and the West Village just came up with an iconic space, but a lot of visibility and we're like, “this makes sense for the second one.”
I think East Village is really good to test the concept for a lot of young people, a lot of median income.
JB: You guys don't necessarily want to be like a bagel place for like old heads.
To put it bluntly, you guys want to be like the bagel that when the current young generation gets older, they look back on with like fond memories.
So I'm curious, like from a strategic perspective, it's kind of like the MO with opening new locations to be in places where the age is lower.
JS: They're the ones that are spreading new places and, just as a business, not even just a food business, we just try to market something naturally without PR needs, obviously, it's organic because the people who are coming are the ones who are organically actually posting stuff and talking about it.
So that's just like a good market that I knew was missing. As much as I admire all the really old OG spots from Zabar's, all these spots and Russ & Daughters.
People aren't necessarily talking about it anymore.
JB: We were talking about a little bit outside, but like bagels, I feel like have become like almost like a status symbol a little bit.
One, because it's like, to your point, it's a pretty low entry.
There's not a lot of price friction there to actually acquire it.
But almost this thing of like people make conscious decisions about where they're gonna get their bagel depending on what they wanna post.
And I'm curious as to if that's played a role in the success so far of Apollo, but also like your personal thoughts on what that is at the current moment, why people are doing that?
JS: I think compared to other cities in the world, we don't like have a full-on cafe culture, like some place in Europe or even LA.
This is kind of like our thing that is kind of unique to New York in the morning time.
That's part of the brand.
That's why it's called Apollo and has light and like the clouds and all these things.
I want this to be like a morning brand and like a place that we have good coffee and you can enjoy breakfast.
And I think that's why it's a little bit almost easier to break into the market just because evening is so much.
It's so overwhelming in New York City to dabble in the evening business.
JB: That like Saturday, Sunday morning bagel is like almost ritualistic. What makes an Apollo bagel unique in terms of like the actual eating experience and maybe some of like the topic inclusions that you guys do as compared to like a typical New York City bagel?
JS: I think the way it's like fermented and baked allows it to be a little more interesting texturally.
And then we don't overload it with too many things.
It's seasoned well and, you know, the open-faced thing obviously blew up in California, but that's when we kind of started also doing it was when all these places in LA started doing it.
I was obviously inspired by what was going on over there.
And I was like, ‘why is no one doing this?’
It's obviously how I eat, how so many people ate a bagel anyway.
And it was just such a timing with social media and just ease of eating just makes sense.
JB: Talk to me a little bit about the design inspiration maybe of like the actual physical location, because I find the East Village one is, to your point, is minimalistic in a sense, it's utilitarian.
There's not a lot of like frill going on necessarily, but I can think of like some motifs that you guys have carried across to this location too, like the signage, like what kind of inspo did you use to create the interior?
JS: Yeah, I did it with my good friend, James Anderson, who's an amazing graphic designer and a super typography nerd.
So I kind of designed the space based on simple materials that are not so hard to get.
It's pretty affordable to build the store, just trying to make it like brighter and less cluttered.
So it's stainless steel and concrete and some wood that's painted.
We could actually get it dirty and then clean it easily and make it so it's not so precious.
We didn't also want to be a fancy bagel shop, but also we don't want to be a crappy one that's like falling apart, which it looks like most bagel shops are falling apart in some way.
JB: You guys kind of have everything you need and nothing you don't, which I think is like an under appreciated motif in new spaces.
It's like people try to maybe implement too much of like their branding into like doing wall motifs and stuff like that, whereas you guys have done it more in like those essential things.
So you're part of like stainless steel counter and even like some of the stuff you can like see through the kitchen and look at is kind of the same way.
JS: Yeah, just trying to keep it clean looking and inspired by some bakeries I love in Europe, where the bakeries kind of look like this and very like startup-y.
Bread bakers don't really have like a lot of money to begin with.
Apollo Bagels opens their West Village location today. Go tap in and get the best bagel in New York.
73 Greenwich Ave
Monday - 7 AM – 5 PM
Tuesday - 7 AM – 5 PM
Wednesday - 7 AM – 5 PM
Thursday - 7 AM – 5 PM
Friday - 7 AM – 5 PM
Saturday - 7 AM – 5 PM
Sunday - 7 AM – 5 PM
Jake Bell is a content marketing, creative strategist, designer, and writer based in NYC. He specializes in brand building, content strategy, creative direction, business development, and making things cool.
Want to chat? Email me: jake@jb.studio
The genius of an open faced bagel sandwich - feels like a bagel, but functionally filling for a lunch, or maybe 1/2 breakfast and other 1/2 for lunch. I love apollo!!!
love apollo!