The problem for Apollo Bagels begins outside its cramped West Village corner storefront and ends, at peak hours, more than 100 feet down the block.
That is the reach of a line of hungry customers who wait patiently outside the shop on weekend mornings and afternoons, seeking a taste of a chewy, crunchy bagel that has been ranked as one of the best in bagel-crazed New York City.
On a recent Sunday, the line included Emma Richardson, 23, who lives in Paris and was capping a 10-day trip to New York with a visit to Apollo Bagels after an American friend told her she “had to go.”
Galen Hughes, 31, who hunts down food that has gone viral in her spare time, had booked an early train from Philadelphia to squeeze in the wait before heading to a Broadway matinee.
And Ryan Krebs, 34, said he had walked from his home in nearby SoHo to try Apollo Bagels and see its “infamous” line.
Less than four months after Apollo Bagels opened on this corner, its second location in the city, it faces an unlikely and possibly intractable challenge: It has gotten too popular.
The building’s landlord, fed up with lines that it says have interfered with neighboring businesses, has threatened to evict Apollo Bagels. The bagel shop, in turn, has taken the landlord to court.
The clash is playing out at a complicated six-way intersection in the heart of the West Village, outside an Art Deco storefront with a distinctive glass-and-chrome cylinder. Before Apollo moved in, consecutive pizzerias operated at the location. Decades ago, it was a bakery.
It is a hectic spot where curving residential and commercial stretches crisscross each other and Seventh Avenue, which carries three lanes of southbound traffic through an upscale, tourist-centric section of Lower Manhattan.
The crowds are flocking to the block to indulge in Apollo’s photogenic and savory sourdough bagels, beloved in equal measure by Instagrammers and food writers. The bagels come in three types — plain, everything and sesame.
The line begins at the corner of West 11th Street and Greenwich Avenue, consuming a relatively spacious sidewalk and running in front of a tidy row of businesses: a century-old boutique chocolatier, a barbecue restaurant, a deli.
Some of those businesses share a landlord with Apollo Bagels. In a notice dated Oct. 17, the landlord, 201-207 West 11th Associates L.L.C., declared the store in “violation of the law” and its lease.
The letter asserted that the line posed a safety hazard and was affecting the operation of the neighboring businesses. It gave the bagel business an ultimatum: relocate the line from Greenwich Avenue to the more residential West 11th Street, or face eviction.
In response, Apollo filed a lawsuit against its landlord in state court, seeking to prevent the landlord from kicking it out.
The bagel shop argued in court papers that moving the line would just make the problem worse, saying that it tried to do so and found that it had created problems for neighbors who lived along a narrow sidewalk.
The landlord’s proposal would also put the line through an outdoor seating area used by Moonflower, a wine bar on West 11th Street, according to the lawsuit. (The owner of Moonflower, Rowen McDermott, declined to comment on the legal fight.)
Apollo Bagels has already won a temporary victory. Justice Louis L. Nock of New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan issued an order in late November preventing any eviction before a court hearing scheduled for Jan. 9.
Justin Kleinman, the chief operating officer of the management company that runs the building, said in a phone interview that he was “happy that this tenant’s business is going well.”
But, he added: “Of course, we ask that people manage their impact on the community responsibly.”
Mr. Kleinman predicted the dispute would “resolve in an amicable way and in a cooperative way.”
Joey Scalabrino, one of the owners of Apollo Bagels, declined to comment on the legal dispute.
His business, which began as a pop-up during the Covid-19 pandemic, has opened two brick-and-mortar locations this year in Manhattan, and both have been hits. But the line at the first location, a mile away on a relatively sedate block in the East Village, has not generated significant controversy.
As Apollo defends its footprint in the West Village, it is also planning to expand: New locations in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and Hoboken, N.J., are set to open this winter, according to its owners.
The bagels are a novel take on a centuries-old form. They are slightly reminiscent of flat Montreal-style bagels, though they are saltier and more plump. In a wrinkle that might be seen by New York bagel purists as sacrilege, they are served toasted by default.
Last month, Apollo landed on a New York Times list of the city’s 17 best bagels — a review that described the store’s offerings as “the best representation of the new-school variety of taut, tangy, bubbly bagels, with a true shell of a crust.” Yelp has slotted Apollo’s among its top 10 bagels in the city. (Many of the other highly ranked titans of New York bagel-making likewise draw long, if less contentious, weekend lines.)
The rankings may have added to the feeding frenzy at Apollo Bagels. But it was Instagram and TikTok that introduced them to many of the people in line.
“If it’s gone viral on Instagram, I’ve stood in the line and waited for it,” said Ms. Hughes, the visitor from Philadelphia. “I like knowing what’s hot — if it lives up to the hype, if it’s actually good.”
After biting into an everything bagel with cream cheese and tomato, Ms. Hughes declared that Apollo Bagels had lived up to the hype, calling her bagel “phenomenal.”
The store’s lease agreement dictates that the sidewalk cannot be obstructed for any reason other than people entering, leaving or making deliveries, according to a copy of the agreement submitted in court. The agreement also says that “no business is allowed to be conducted” on the sidewalk.
A judge may be left to decide whether people in line are conducting business, and whether they are in the process of entry.
In its lawsuit, Apollo Bagels outlined its efforts to mitigate the issue, noting that it had hired an employee to supervise the line and keep it moving smoothly.
“If this court finds that Apollo is in default of the lease, Apollo is able to cure any default that may be found,” the complaint promised.
To date, Apollo Bagels has erected stanchions and ropes, posted signage urging customers to be respectful of the neighboring stores and deployed multiple line supervisors.
Last Sunday, the bagel bouncers created a break in the line outside the next-door chocolate shop, Li-Lac Chocolates, and handed out samples to customers waiting for bagels.
An owner of Li-Lac Chocolates, Christopher Taylor, declined to comment on the conflict, saying that he did not “want to get involved in landlord politics.” He said he got along with both his landlord and the owners of Apollo Bagels.
Standing inside his shop and greeting customers, Mr. Taylor said that he wished he had a similar line outside his store, and that he worried about the crowd’s effect on his business.
But he said he did not begrudge Apollo Bagels for its success.
“It’s a pain in the neck, and sometimes customers say, ‘Oh, it looked really crowded, I didn’t want to come in,’” Mr. Taylor said. But “if we can’t convert all these people into our customers by sampling, that’s our problem, not their problem.”
Micha Magid, an owner of Mighty Quinn’s, the barbecue restaurant down the block, declined to comment in a brief phone call, calling the dispute an “ongoing issue.”
Locals standing outside Apollo Bagels saw merit in both sides’ perspectives.
Erika Goth, 23, of Gramercy Park, said it would be a “bummer” if Apollo Bagels had to move. “But I feel bad for these stores,” she added.
“Maybe the solution’s a bigger space,” suggested Anika Jain, 23, a Hell’s Kitchen resident, who said that she did not think Apollo Bagels was at fault.
And Varun Malkani, 31, of the West Village, declared that he was just happy to see a “good food feud.”
“I’m all for the feud,” he chuckled.
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