Viral New York bagels are coming to North London
Queues expected for this one
New York-style bagel shop It’s Bagels is set to open its fourth London venue next month.
It’s Bagels’ next eatery will be in Hampstead, joining the Primrose Hill, Notting Hill and Soho sites the bagel sensation already operates.
It is due to open at some point in August 2026, at 60 Hampstead High Street.
Founder Dan Martensen’s reasoning for the move is that It’s Bagels should be able to provide the local area with something it doesn’t have much of right now.
There’s “not a huge amount of elevated grab-and-go food in the area, and that’s where we think we can bring something different to the neighbourhood,” says Martensen.
“We want to be the place people stop before a walk on the Heath, before school drop-off, or before a picnic on a sunny weekend.”
The first of It’s Bagels’s proper physical locations opened in 2023 — the Primrose Hill branch. But before that, it ran as a pop-up within Caravan Roastery in Camden, and as a delivery service.
It’s Bagels serves both filled bagels and unfilled ones you can buy in sacks for your home. The filled kind starts at £5.50 for a PB&J sandwich — if we don’t include the plain buttered bagel at £3.75, anyway.
Go big, and you can pick up a The Works bagel with cream cheese, brined salmon, onion, capers, and lemon for £13.50.
Plain bagels cost £1.80 a pop, or you can buy 13 for £21. There’s a heap of options, including plain, garlic and cinnamon raisin — while weekend specials include pumpernickel and rainbow bagels, among others. Exotic.
We expect to see big queues at the Hampstead branch when it opens next month — there certainly was at It’s Bagels’s previous openings.
The chain was started by a former professional photographer Dan Martensen who, like so many, began experimenting with baking during covid lockdowns. He used to live in Brooklyn, New York, before moving to London in 2019, and the It’s Bagels concept is to bring some of the Brooklyn bagel shop buzz over here.
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