World’s Greatest Bagel Store Shut Down By Department of Health

The greatest bagels in the world are made in Manhattan. And the finest bagels in Manhattan are hand-crafted by Absolute Bagels on Broadway and 108th. Which, as if we haven’t suffered enough, was recently closed by the city’s Department of Health for a number of violations, including evidence of mice.

Some clients were undeterred, determined not to let something as trivial as hygiene get between them and chewy perfection:

Absolute bagels closed this weekend for health violatiojns. I don’t even care, give me the bagels #upperwestsidelife



— Lindsey Frances (@lindsfrances) October 29, 2017

Absolute’s other health code violations include such classics as “Filth flies or food/refuse/sewage-associated (FRSA) flies present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas,” and “Food not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display or service.”

There’s never a good time for a bagel heaven to shutter its gates, but Absolute’s timing was especially poor: Late last week, it was ranked by Grub Street as the city’s (read: the world’s) second-best bagel, an insufficiently reverential ranking that nonetheless acknowledged Absolute’s cult status. Adding insult to injury, the short blurb accompanying the selection focused primarily on Absolute’s sanitary conditions, calling it a “filthy little store with sublime bagels” and lamenting its “general grime.”

Never mind all that: Mice come and go, but glory is eternal. Absolute Bagels is slated to reopen today, leaving its loyal clientele hungry for the best, filth flies be damned.