"Best bagels on the UWS. I see people here complaining about prices and wait times. Most of the time I don 't get my bagels with anything on them, which may explain why I don 't have these issues?I usually buy just the bagels, get cream cheese separately from the supermarket (or sometimes a 1/4 pound container of their specialty cream cheese, usually garlic herb), and perform the necessary procedures at home myself. This is the old Upper West Side way of doing things, dating back to when the old H H Bagels on 80th Broadway ruled the UWS. (The new one on Columbus 85th 86th belongs to the H H Bagels East company, which is different and not as good).The old H H sold both bagels and cream cheese, but would not assemble them together for you. You were expected to do this yourself at home. I guess I just got used to doing things that way.Anyway. Ever since H H closed, Tal Bagels has consistently had the best bagels in the neighborhood. The everything bagels are absolutely perfect, and they have whole wheat everything too.The staff is rude because they are relentlessly overworked and always exhausted. Please try to be patient with them, and consider maybe dropping a few dollars in the tip jar. The guys who show up at 4 AM or whenever to open are the same guys who close in the evening. On top of that, there 's usually only 2 of them serving customers, and the place gets pretty busy.This is also why the closing time listed here is not quite correct (6 PM every day? LOL). They close early as often as they can, occasionally as early as 2:30 PM on Sunday. Go as early as possible, and don 't count on them being open after 4 PM."
