Why PopUp Bagels appeals on Long Island, where mom-and-pop bagel shops reign

How do you create buzz and success around something so ingrained in the psyche of a location without upsetting the decades-old order of said destination? We’re talking about PopUp Bagels, the viral bagel-and-schmear combination that began as a cooking experiment in a Connecticut backyard during the pandemic and is now catching on with Long Islanders.

There are more than 40 stores open across the tristate area, including in Roslyn and Westhampton Beach, and another 35 to come over the next five years. This month sees the opening of Garden City, followed by Huntington Station and Plainview.

It may not be long before PopUp challenges local chains, not to mention Long Island's hundreds of independent bagel shops. So how did it happen?

Entering a beloved local bagel scene

The story begins with PopUp’s owner, Adam Goldberg, who found himself "bored of the sourdough trend," and tried his hand at a bagel recipe. A quick hit with friends and family, he eventually started selling the bagels from a pop-up window in his yard. The catch? These bagels were smaller than most contemporary bagels, served hot and dipped directly into the cream cheese container, rather than being buttered or spread.

As the concept evolved, the cream cheese dips evolved into non-traditional flavors — infused with pickle juice, truffles, chocolate chips, even caviar. A slogan emerged: "Grip, rip, and dip." Grip the bagel, rip off a piece, dip it in. Savor.

With the help of corporate backers, stores began to open in Connecticut. Next came a shop in New York City’s Greenwich Village, and a temporary pop-up window in the Hamptons followed. In 2024, PopUp's first Long Island brick-and-mortar opened in Roslyn.

PopUp’s online presence was trending. Certainly the company was, and still is, deploying the kind of turbocharged, social-media-fueled marketing campaign that didn’t exist a decade ago. 

Suddenly, everyone wanted the merch, particularly a canvas tote bag emblazoned with their other slogan: "Not Famous But Known." Food brands wanted to collaborate on schmears, from hot sauce to jams. Butter aficionados demanded equal representation in the schmear options. Most recently, a Westhampton Beach shop debuted in June. A New Jersey outpost in July. Expansion to Maryland in August. And there’s no signs of a slowdown.

Next comes another Nassau launch: Garden City on Friday, Sept. 18, and a second Suffolk outpost will open at the Walt Whitman Shops shortly thereafter.

That’s a lot of expansion for a food item that is already available in every neighborhood of Long Island, with traditional bagel shops receiving deep loyalty from both regular customers and visitors.

In the business of baked goods

Behind PopUp is a part of Fresh Standing Concepts, which is now overseeing the growth of the PopUp Bagel expansion across Long Island, Brooklyn, Queens and the West Coast. "We love partnering with brands that do one thing and do one thing incredibly well, and PopUp is, like, a poster child for this," explained Kevin Bush, the chief strategy officer of Fresh Standing Concepts.

A franchise operator with a portfolio of brands including but not limited to Auntie Anne’s, Cinnabon, Jamba Juice, some Carvels, as well as Nothing Bundt Cakes, Bush credits PopUp’s simplicity for its success and rapid expansion.

Bush points to the other brands that Fresh Standing Concepts represents. "The core of our business is baked goods," he explained. "It's Auntie Anne’s, it's Cinnabon. This resonated because what PopUp does is exactly what we do in the other spaces. Auntie Anne’s is a scratch-made product. We are making fresh dough, we are rolling pretzels, we are baking pretzels, and we are selling them within 30 minutes of when  come out of the oven. PopUp is, essentially, that exact model."

Neighboring mom-and-pops

To Bush, the idea that he is selling a novelty bagel on Long Island didn’t matter.

"We don't do sandwiches. I think that the sandwich aspect, what is typically referred to as a ‘classic New York bagel shop,’ is very different from what we are and what we offer," continued Bush.

Quite a few of PopUp Bagels’ locations sit directly adjacent to an existing community bagel store, which has a tendency to garner some backlash.  

Still, according to Steve Gold, the senior vice president of real estate for Fresh Standing Concepts, the location remains a key part of the formula for PopUp’s success.

"We are all about A-type real estate sites. We do not settle, no matter how good of a brand you have, you really need to be in the best of the best location." That means it needs to be convenient for consumers, visible from the street, have good parking, and be walkable. "Forcing subpar locations in a particular area doesn't work."

They chose the Garden City location because of its proximity to the Roosevelt Field mall. "If they're coming to Long Island, that's the first place they go," Gold said. In Huntington Station, the incoming PopUp store is located at the Walt Whitman Shops, although it is outward facing. Simon Property Group, which owns the Roosevelt Field mall is Fresh Standing Concepts’ biggest landlord, as many of their other franchise brands are in Simon malls across the country.

A brand built on schmears 

The trend among many Long Island bagels shops seems to be outcompeting one another with crazy flavors — blueberry, Asiago cheese, French toast, chocolate chip — and rainbow colors. The bagels are huge; they are doughy: they are so doughy that many customers scoop out and discard the guts.  

For those who have yet to try a PopUp Bagel, they are smaller, and more compact than many Long Island bagels. More dense, with a chewy center and crispy exterior, PopUp bagels are served warm alongside requisite cream cheese cups. No sandwiches, no salads, no special orders, just bagels.

Bagels come in just five flavors — poppy, sesame, plain, salt and everything. Cream cheese and butter flavors change weekly and are often collaborations. Past collabs have included mashups like Sabatino Truffles cream cheese and Natalie’s "Tangerine Dream Butter," a citrus-infused collaboration with Natalie's Orchid Island Juice Company. Other popular flavors have included jalapeño cheddar, lemon pepper, scallion and cacio e pepe. But it’s not just savory schmears. Sweet versions range from Oreo and Poppi creamsicle flavors, to a recent banana-bread chocolate-chip cream cheese. Weekly specialty butters like the shallot or cinnamon-sugar butter round out offerings.

For the store's Garden City opening, in The Gallery at Westbury Plaza shopping center, the specialty schmear will be a chocolate-chip cannoli variety.

Bagels can be purchased in-store in increments of three ($13, including one schmear), six (plus one schmear, $21) and 12 (plus two schmears, $46), 30 (plus five schmears). Extra schmears are $7, and a vegan version is $10. Besides bagels and schmears, smoked fish — lox runs $12 for 4 ounces and $22 for 8 ounces, whitefish salad ($20) and trout roe ($24) — are also available. Preordered and delivery options are also available.

A chain's eye view of LI  

Of course, other national chains have found fertile ground in Nassau and Suffolk Counties: Legacy brands such as McDonald’s, Carvel and Dunkin’ Donuts line our thoroughfares alongside relative upstarts like Starbucks, Shake Shack and Chick-fil-A. More PopUp-pertinent may be Wonder, the takeout-friendly, "food hall" behemoth that debuted in Melville last year and, at last count, operates 13 locations here.

But bagels. Bagels. Along with the deli and the pizzeria, the bagel shop is one of Long Island’s three culinary pillars.

Local delis have had to contend with Jersey Mike’s since it opened in Commack in 2016. Still, 10 years later, there are fewer than two dozen Long Island outposts — not to mention the even lower-end Subway shops. While they may be cheaper, I’d wager that no one seriously considers a sandwich from either of these places a worthy rival to our homegrown champions.

As for pizza, there was a brief vogue, starting in 2014, for "foreign" chains delivering DIY pizza, Chipotle-style places where an associate assembled your pie according to your specifications. The first Long Island outpost of these was Blaze Pizza, which opened in West Babylon and, later, in Bay Shore and Hicksville. The latter two remain open. PizzaRev operated stores in Syosset, Deer Park, Hauppauge and Valley Stream. All are closed (and, nationwide, only four survive). And Pizza Studio had a very brief run in Farmingdale.

These places never gained a foothold because they fundamentally misunderstood Long Island's pizza culture. But PopUp Bagels may be on to something. There is still an appetite here for the kinds of bagels that purists turn their noses up at.

But the rise of PopUp may be a wake-up call to independent shops: If you build a better bagel, they will come. 

PopUp Bagels, 920 Old Country Rd., Garden City, popupbagels.com; Open Monday through Sunday 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.