Black Seed Bagels | Nolita — Restaurant in New York

Absolutely not worth your time. I should preface this by saying - I used to love this place. They DO have delcious hybrid-Montreal bagels. After the fire and reopening of this location, though, they’ve changed nothing for the better.

1. Their floor plan is asinine, and they will yell to remind you to step inside and close the door which, on a weekend, is an impossibility, and does not contribute to easing customers through the space, getting them served, and getting new customers in.

2. when I waiting 15 minutes in line, I don’t want to hear when I get to the front that you are out of the most popular bagel. Just be up front and say it. I further don’t want to hear that whatever I order, it’s going to be “AT LEAST a 20 minute wait”. For what? Stop yelling at your customers and utilize the 8 line workers you have behind the counter, or just do better prep in the morning. This is coming from someone who used to work at a breakfast spot that was very similar. I get it - it’s NYC, it’s the weekend, you get paid very little. I am not at all upset with the workers, but step the game up.

3. you will pay 12$ for a bec. And the bagels have shrunk since their reopening. I simply can’t recommend the place anymore - and plenty of other places in NYC make...

To celebrate Lunar New Year, Black Seed Bagels launched a Feb special "baogel" in collab with Potluck Club.

Overall, it was an interesting collab. As a self-claimed bagel ambassador I was glad I did try them out. The baogels were not bad but very mid. As usual, their bagels never blew my mind. We would just stick to Chinese bakeries for cheaper price or maybe even better taste.

＊ Everything Baogel The baogel was lighter and puffier than a bagel. They heated up the bao for us so the steam literally rushed out when we pulled the bread. The char siu wasn't what we expected from a char siu bao, and looked totally different from the juicy caramelized brown fillings they showed on their ig. It was more like a regular cooked pork belly bun. I also wish there were more everything seasonings.

＊ Sweet Bolo Baogel It was underwhelming......It tasted nothing like bolo bao, which rather reminded us of Mexican Bao (墨西哥包), which is a close cousin of pineapple bun but with a thinner and moister crust lol. Felt like we've gotten a bad batch because I saw the top of the bolo baogels online looked craggy, while ours was soggy... It was def not the pastry quality I expected from Potluck Club team as I've seen so many beautiful pictures of their bolo...

I live next door and have been going to Black Seed - out of convenience for over a year. The food is good but it comes at an illogical cost:

There is a single, small grill and prep area - which creates massive backups for completing orders. There is no sense of urgency. Poor situational awareness for order ques. High staff turnover so nobody is ever "good at their job".

The owner really needs to add another grill and create a larger kitchen section. But I'm sure he's already aware of that.

A typical Black Seed experience:

Empty non peak hours. Wait 5 mins to place order (Today it took 5 mins to place my order with one person in front of me. Why?) Wait 20+ mins to get order (Guaranteed. You will always wait at least 20 mins to get your egg/cheese bagel.) Receive sloppily assembled, burnt order. (Bonus: Little pieces of paper you need to pull out of the sliced part because they don't sharpen their knives.) Self loath for choosing Black Seed because its close.

Go to Tompkins Square bagel (new location) on (11&2), or their old location on (10&A) for a...