A Polarizing New York Bagel Shop Debuts in Boston

There’s a new bagel player in town. PopUp Bagels, known for serving their piping hot bagels only one way — handed over the counter as-is, with no slicing, schmearing, or sandwiching in sight — has opened a permanent location this week in the Seaport, at 70 Pier 4 Boulevard, Suite 330.

PopUp Bagels operates with a relentlessly simple menu: Customers can choose from five different kinds of bagels (everything, sesame, salt, plain, and poppyseed), baked to achieve a crusty exterior and a chewy, soft center. For spreads, there are two always-available options (plain and scallion cream cheese), plus a rotating cast of other spreads, like carmelized onion cream cheese and salted butter. A cream cheese made in collaboration with Boston-born Grillo’s Pickles will be for sale at the Seaport opening. But these schmears only come one way — in a tub, on the side, ready for ripping and dipping those bagels. While it’s not entirely uncommon to come across a bagel shop that doesn’t toast its bagels (some would argue that only a sub-par bagel needs to be toasted in the first place), not even slicing the doughy rounds? Needing to rip apart a bagel and dunk the hunks of bread in cream cheese is a weird ask.

The pandemic-born bagel shop got its start in Connecticut and enjoys a cult following in New York, where its obsessive focus has earned it spots on best bagel lists by Eater New York and the New York Times. Four years and a handful of celebrity investors later, the company now includes nine locations spread across New York and Connecticut, plus a preorder-only weekend shop at seafood purveyor Captain Marden’s in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

Boston’s bagel scene is already bursting with talent, from old-school institutions like Rosenfeld’s in Newton and Kupel’s in Brookline, alongside buzzy newer spots like Cambridge’s Bagelsaurus, where the bagels are such a hot commodity that scoring one on the weekend requires days-ahead strategizing. Plus, there are blink-and-you’ll-miss-it pop-ups like Brick Street Bagels that have developed strong fan followings in recent years. Further afield, the South Shore’s Atlantic Bagel cannot be overlooked. Still, PopUp Bagels’ singular approach to the genre stands out as an intriguing new addition to Boston’s scene.

PopUp Bagels is open from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily at 70 Pier 4 Boulevard, Suite 330, in the Seaport.