A hole on the upper west side

BY RAANAN GEBERER

For many years, the original H&H Bagels on Broadway and West 80th Street was considered by aficionados to be the best bagel store on the Upper West Side, if not the city.

Reviews of the original store, which are still up on Yelp, give eloquent testimony to how beloved the store was. “Served hot right out of the oven, soft and not too dense,” “Absolutely the best bagels in New York,” “Oh, how I will miss your hot, fat cinnamon raisin bagels at 2 a.m.! Your stash of cream cheeses in the fridge and your every manner of lox!”

I went to the store whenever I was in the neighborhood and I can testify that their bagels, made the old-fashioned way, were everything these commenters said they were and more. A peculiarity of H&H was that they didn’t spread cream cheese or other condiments on your bagel — you had to buy it separately and do it yourself — but I didn’t mind.

In fact, in 2015, President Barack Obama, in an exchange with the Forward, recalled that when he was a student at Columbia University, he walked down from the school to H&H to buy bagels — usually poppy seed — on weekends, and that he was shocked when the store closed in 2011.

What many people don’t know, however, is that the store had a contentious history, with one lawsuit after another.

H&H Bagels was founded in 1972. In that year, Helmer Toro and his brother-in-law, Hector Hernandez, whom he later bought out, took over an existing bagel store, according to “The Rise and Fall of H&H Bagels” by Marc Zirogiannis, who served as the company’s national business manager for several years. Over the years, H&H, because of the quality and freshness of its bagels, became an Upper West Side institution. H&H also had a bakery and wholesale location on West 46th Street in Hell’s Kitchen, which included another retail counter.

In 1997, the store was the focus of a “Seinfeld” episode, “The Strike,” in which hapless Kramer goes back to work at H&H after a mythical 12-year strike. H&H now became famous nationwide, and orders poured in from across the U.S. and from afar as Europe and Asia. The “Seinfeld” episode, by the way, introduced the now-celebrated “holiday” of Festivus.

However, Toro’s tax problems threatened to dunk the bagel empire. As The New York Times reported at the time, Toro pleaded guilty in state Supreme Court in November 2009 to pocketing nearly $370,000 in payroll taxes owed to state authorities as well as shortchanging the state and federal governments on unemployment insurance tax receipts. He was sentenced to 50 weekends in jail and ordered to pay more than $500,000 in restitution.

Things didn’t get much easier after that either, according to Zirogiannis, who says he met Toro when he, too, was serving weekends in jail on unrelated charges. Zirogiannis’ book describes further problems, and lists 15 lawsuits he says were filed against H&H, its entities and/or its owners. He says that there were negotiations were several would-be investors, but they didn’t work out. In February 2011, Toro filed for bankruptcy.

And so, in June 2011, the original store closed for the last time. The 46th Street outlet stayed open for a while but closed in 2012 following eviction proceedings. The West Side mourned the 80th Street store’s loss. Writing in the Huffington Post in August 2011, Nora Zelevansky compared it to the loss of other Upper West Side stalwarts such as Shakespeare & Co. bookstore, Diane’s burgers, the Broadway Nut Shop and Lichtman’s Bakery.

Today, there is once again an H&H Bagels on the Upper West Side, although the new store is not related to the original or to its owners, other than tangentially. The new store, on Columbus Avenue near 86th Street, is an outpost of H&H Bagels Midtown East, a store that was originally part of a failed expansion plan by Toro. As Zirogiannis details, in the 1980s H&H was on the brink of failing, Toro filed for bankruptcy protection, and a judge split the assets of his business. A different owner bought the East Side location — which also still exists — and inherited the “H&` Midtown East” title.