It’s National Bagel Day on Jan. 15 but NYC Shops Largely Ignore It
NYC has always considered itself as the heart of bagel making. But National Bagel Day set for Jan. 15 is generating little enthusiasm for the day in the Big Apple aside from a few outlets with national reach.
| 11 Jan 2026 | 09:34
At one of the few Manhattan bagel emporiums to honot National Bagel Day on January 15, H&H will give anyone who is a member of their Rewards program a free bagel and cream cheese combination, (
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Asked which type of bagel they would want to be stranded on a desert island with, most respondents to a recent survey picked the everything bagel. (
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While bagel shops across the US and abroad are celebrating National Bagel Day on Jan. 15, the Manhattan temples of hole-y-ness, for the most part, give it a “meh.” Manhattan devotees of the schmear may be bound for disappointment.
With a couple of exceptions, this yearly bake fest tradition that was first established in 2003 by the Bagel Bakery Association, has bypassed our island.
From Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where bagels are a US Dollar or so, (maybe it’s really International Bagel Day) to Englewood NJ, promotions abound, sometimes just for members of their e-mail programs, and others for everybody.
Last week, Austin Texas-based Einstein Brothers Bagels released its first ever “State of the Bagel” report. In a survey of 1,000 U.S. adults, 52 percent now say they’ll eat bagels anytime of the day, and 55 percent prefer bagels to donuts. A similar percentage admit they lick the cream cheese off the knife when spreading the schmear at home. And if stranded on the proverbial desert island, one third admitted fealty to the everything bagel as their bagel of choice to accompany them.
On National Bagel day, Einstein Bros will provide an opportunity for a “new schmear’s resolution” at their outlets (none in Manhattan, closest one open to the general public is in Yardley, PA). With the mention of the secret words, for a bagel with your favorite cream cheese.
Closer to home, On January 15, the H&H bagel chain, which has branches uptown and downtown and which has made cameo appearances in “Sex and the City” and “Seinfeld” is offering their Manhattan rewards members a bagel/schmear combo free with a membership in the program. H&H has been a New York City fixture since the 1970s. Panera, a coast to coast chain with Manhattan outlets, has a membership free bagel promotion if you buy one of their new sandwiches.
Straus News Manhattan polled over a dozen different neighborhood stores on January 9 to see how they would celebrate NBD and most appeared indifferent.
A call to Matt, the manager of the Tompkins Square Bagel on 68th Street, provided the response that nothing was planned for the four stores in that group, where patrons frequently wait on line to get in.
An email to the communications director for Pop-Up bagels remained unanswered by the end of the day.
Other emails to a few other multi-store outlets also went that route. A few phone calls to local stores indicated that National Bagel Day was not something on their radar.
Newly-opened New Absolute Bagels manager Amy Kim was not aware of the significance of January 15, but promised to consult with the owners to try and offer something special for that day.
In short, alas, it doesn’t look like January 15 will be different from any other day, no celebratory offerings at most Gotham venues.
While the proverbial “schmear” of cream cheese has Yiddish roots, in the words of Einstein Bros. Bagels Chief Marketing Officer Jessica Serrano assessing their survey, “These insights prove that bagels have become more than just food. They are a cultural phenomenon.”