No need to wait for the folks at Apollo Bagels to get their feet under them: the shop is up and running and has transformed the Kings space into a very roomy cafe with excellent booths on the Bogardus side.

The bagels come in only three flavors: plain, sesame and everything (which does not have salt). And the menu in general is limited; there are only a six prepared options and several drink options. (They do bottle their own ginger lemonade — highly recommend.)

But the real distinction here are the bagels themselves: sourdough, very crispy on the outside, very spongy — with the sourdough air pockets — on the inside. Lighter than the usual. Fairly large. Hard to tear! I recommend slicing. Delicious.

Co-founder Joey Scalabrino (that’s him in the Knicks hat below with his partners) is a Soho native — he went to Wagner for middle school and School of the Future for high school. And right after that he started cooking, prepared to go down the usual chef route. But then he learned to make bread, opened a sourdough pizza spot, Leo, in Williamsburg, then a few years later launched the bagels as a pop-up at the soup kiosk at Fanelli. The first stand-alone shop opened in early 2024 in the East Village and now there are nine, including Tribeca and another newcomer in Industry City.

“When I think of the center of the world, for me it’s Fanelli’s. Mercer and Prince,” Joey said.

And it seems that at some point in his career he was going to come back to bagels. But as he got older (he’s 35, so everything is relative), he said, he was having a hard time digesting the food he grew up with. So he tinkered.

“Bagels are a tried-and-true thing that new Yorkers have always enjoyed. It’s such a New York staple,” he said. “But I wanted a lighter, more refreshed version — it seemed like the right time.”

The bagels are still boiled and baked on site at each location, but the dough is a bit different. “Honestly there’s no real secret other than the sourdough. It’s very simple.”

 The Times put Apollo at the top of its 2024 best bagels in NYC list, calling them “the best representation of the new-school variety of taut, tangy, bubbly bagels, with a true shell of a crust.”

The Infatuation gave it an 8, for its “must try” status: “Served hot out of the oven, the bagels are crusty and burnished, as if sun-kissed by Apollo himself. The insides are craggy and chewy, like a really good sourdough loaf, with a little tang. This is bagel that you may never be able to cut in half, because by the time you get to your kitchen, you’ll have eaten the entire thing, rip by savage rip.”

It certainly is awesome to have the lights on again at that crucial Tribeca corner.

“We are super grateful to be here,” Joey said. “We will try to do right by Kings.”

Apollo Bagels
121 Reade at Hudson
Seven days, starting at 7a