Credit: Emily Wyner

WSPN’s Emily Wyner dives in to popular bagel store “PopUp Bagels” that has recently opened a new location in Seaport, Boston.

Nestled between the up and coming corner off of Pier four Blvd. in Boston, PopUp Bagels is the new viral spot to visit in Seaport. The popular bagel shop has blown up on social media over the past few months for their signature bagels and various creative spreads, gaining over 21,000 followers on TikTok, with almost 2 million views on some of their most successful videos, and over 145,000 followers on Instagram. The new Boston location opened on Friday, Jan. 10, at 70 Pier four Blvd. Suite 330, in Boston, and is open from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

PopUp Bagel’s slogan “Not famous but known,” is the motto for the store that was made from a small hobby into a much bigger operation. The company’s founder, Adam Goldberg, sold his bagel creations through his backyard pickup window at his house in Connecticut during the pandemic as a way to get people out of their houses.

With four locations in New York, four in Connecticut, one store and one popup in Florida, and now its first store in Boston, with a pickup center at Captain Mardens in Wellesley, the business is beginning to sprinkle its specialty bagels throughout the Northeast. The Popup locations are temporary while the stores are permanent. The pickup centers are within stores that carry PopUp Bagels, and are available by pre order. Some students at WHS have hopped onto the trend, and visited one of PopUp Bagel’s two locations throughout Massachusetts.

“I’ve always gone to the Wellesley one,” junior Penelope Jacques said. “We get the bag of bagels with different types of cream cheese.”

PopUp Bagels are known for their innovative take on bagels, particularily in how they serve bagels; with simple flavors, and unsliced. Their slogan “Grip, Rip and Dip,” explores the ripping technique of eating a bagel and dipping it into their unique spreads instead of the typical sliced bagel filled with a variety of toppings. Outside of the store is a sign reading, “Bagels. Not sandwiches.” which enforces their commitment to their idea that bagels can be enjoyed without the fillings in between. The bagels consistently available in store are plain, everything, poppy seed, salt and sesame bagels. Accompanied with the bagels are their spreads, also called “Schmears” of plain cream cheese, scallion cream cheese and plain butter.

“It was really fresh and warm when I got it, and I like how you can pick six different flavors [in] addition to butter or cream cheese,” sophomore Audrey Raftery said. “I [also] like how they have different flavors each week. It makes it fun.”

The spreads flavors’ vary each week, and often PopUp Bagels will collaborate with other food companies to make niche flavors. These flavors have ranged from Oreo, to iced coffee flavor Wandering Bear, to Pickle de Gallo Grillos Pickles, and more. Specialty flavors are completely ranging and encompass flavors you wouldn’t usually see in a bagel shop like spicy vodka sauce cream cheese, and more.

“I’ve just gotten plain and I got the strawberry one,” sophomore Grace Willis said. “I’m not that adventurous, but my mom’s gotten the vegetable one, [and] a bunch of other ones, and she loves them all.”

The novelty of PopUp Bagels has brought it business and buzz on social media, but with it has come skepticism of the price for the bagels. When ordering in store, customers have the option of buying bagels in bags of three, six and 12. When preordering, the minimum amount of bagels to buy is a dozen. A dozen bagels with two complementary schmears is $42, six bagels and one included schmear is $22 and three bagels with one included schmear is $15. Additional spreads cost $7 each.

The highly popular bagel shop is here to stay in the Seaport, with endless schmear flavor combinations to come.

“I’m willing to try some more depending on the [flavors],” Willis said.