Popular New York City-based bagel mini-empire Black Seed Bagels has arrived in Williamsburg.

Noah Bernamoff, Matt Kliegman, and Dianna Daoheung opened the first location in 2014 on Elizabeth Street and the shop quickly gained cult status for their hybrid Montreal-NYC style bagel.

When the first location opened, long lines and high demand temporarily closed for a day to allow bakers to catch up. Since then, the company has opened eight stores around New York City.

The newest shop located at 214 Berry Street (Between Metropolitan and 3rd) offered us an opportunity to find out more about our favorite breakfast food.

Unsurprisingly, the two most popular orders are a standard bacon, egg, and cheese and the traditional smoked salmon with cream cheese, red onion, tomato, and capers.

And if you happen to be picking up a bagel for a friend but are unsure what to get, try the everything, the most popular bagel option.

If you are looking to try something new, consider the almond butter and jelly on a bagel, an “if you know, you know fan favorite.”

Across the eight shops, Black Seed Bagels is selling upwards of 30,000 bagels every week.

Although the locations are scattered across disparate neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Manhattan, New Yorkers appear to have similar tastes, and bagel preferences are pretty much the same across the city, according to Matt Kliegman and Noah Bernamoff. The big differences between locations is in which days of the week are busier, with some spots getting crowded on the weekends while others see more traffic during the week.

We couldn’t help but ask whether bagels were experiencing any big vibe shifts lately, and at least at Black Seed, there is one big one: cinnamon raisin bagels. Black Seed recently added the bagel to their menu and “they’re not too sweet and folks seem to be enjoying them.”

The bagel mini-empire is also expanding plant-based cream cheeses and now carries Spero, a product made from sunflowers.

Black Seed Bagels also sent over some bagel glamor shots which we couldn’t resist turning into a giant wall of photo deliciousness.

Black Seed Bagels has smoked salmon sourced from Catsmo Smokehouse.

Last year, they began selling their own proprietary housemade pastrami and smoked turkey.

The pastrami is popping up all over the Black Seed menu with pastrami, egg, and cheese sandwiches.

They are also selling a classic pastrami rueben (bottom right) based on one their favorite old school bagel shops in London, Brick Lane.

Also on the menu is a stunning looking bagel pizza, a classic NYC combination of Jewish and Italian immigrant food traditions.

Just remember though, bagels are an early morning treat. Bakers are baking by 4am, and even earlier on the weekend, so perhaps its no surprise (it was a surprise) that they are closed by 3pm.

Black Seed Bagels
214 Berry Street
8am to 3pm
Website
Instagram

Correction: A previous version of this article implied the pastrami comes from the smokehouse, but in fact it was salmon.