the holiday hundred: bagels and bogus bills

Good bagels are finally available again after dark in Murray Hill (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

When I was a teenager, one of my favorite television commercials was for Temp Tee whipped cream cheese. It wasn’t only because the tub was my family’s spread of choice but because I thought the ad was so funny. (I also liked Philadelphia cream cheese, which arrived as a solid block, but Temp Tee is the one that proclaims it is “uniquely New York since 1927.”)

The half-minute advertisement took place in a fancy restaurant where, after a man in a suit (Dan Resin, who played Dr. Beeper in Caddyshack) requests Temp Tee with his omelette and croissant, the waiter (Lee Wallace, who played the Ed Koch–lookalike mayor in the original Taking of Pelham One Two Three) goes into the kitchen and brings him a bagel served in a covered metal dish — which makes sense to me, since bagels are indeed a delicacy — snidely announcing, “Bagel for your cream cheese, sir?” The man peers at it, then at the camera, and, totally baffled, states, “Bagel? What’s a bagel?”

It’s a question I find myself asking over and over again in my Murray Hill neighborhood — well, more to the point, Bagel? Where’s a bagel? — if I need a fix of fresh circular dough with a hole in it after 5:00 pm. Sure, bagels may be best known as a breakfast food — although my maternal grandparents enjoyed a bagel with farmer cheese just about every night at 11:00 — but why does every bagel store around me shut its doors so early?

Zucker’s closes at 2:15, H&H at 3:30, Utopia at 4:00, and Bagel Boss at 5:00. So, for example, when my wife and I go out for the evening and return home at 9:00, 10:00, 11:00, or later, which is many nights, there is no place to pick up a hot bagel sandwich, be it with butter, cream cheese, or whitefish salad — or even as a Philly cheesesteak.

Until now.

(Oh, and yes, we buy plenty of bagels that we store and freeze, but they’re not the same, although I have developed a foolproof method to reheat them so they taste pretty fresh, but it takes patience.)

One of the pizza places by us, on Second Ave., just turned part of its large shop into a bagel store that’s open late. It’s pure nirvana — and entertaining as well, especially when it comes to money.

A few weeks ago, I stopped in around 10:00 at night and ordered an egg bagel with cream cheese and an onion bagel with butter, both toasted. It was $7.20; I gave the guy behind the counter a twenty, and he handed me back $7.20 and disappeared into the back of the store. When he returned, I explained that he had given me the wrong change, that I should get $12.80, not $7.20, which was the cost of the order. He paused for a moment, then found it amusing and fixed it. Back in our apartment, I surprised my wife with a hot, toasted bagel well past dark.

Later that week, on the way home I decided to get a coupla slices from a different pizza place, on Third Ave., that does not have bagels. I had a hundred-dollar bill in my wallet, so I asked the man at the cash register if he could break it; I was ready with a card if not, but he didn’t blink an eye as he took the C-note and counted out the change.

During Christmas week, I was in a late-night bagel mood, as my people and I often are. The bagel originated in Poland, where my paternal grandmother is from, and has been a staple of Ashkenazi Jews for more than four hundred years.

So I went to the Second Ave. pizza-bagel store — hmm, I have no idea if they make pizza bagels — this time ordering an egg bagel with lox spread and an onion bagel with whitefish salad. The same friendly counter guy was there.

You have your choice of pizza or bagels at late-night gem — but not necessarily a pizza bagel (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

He picked out my bagels but was interrupted by a man in a flashy winter coat who ordered a slice and pulled out a hundred-dollar bill to pay for it. The counter guy took the bill, looked at it, and, without hesitating, said he couldn’t accept it without his boss’s approval. The coat dude asked where the boss was; counter guy answered that he had already left for the night. Coat dude insisted he take the bill; counter guy asked if he had anything smaller or had a card. Coat dude said no. Counter guy suggested he try to break it at the CVS next door. Coat dude scoffed at that idea, then canvassed the five other patrons in the place to see if they could break a hundred, getting madder and madder as each of us said no.

“I just want a slice of pizza!” coat dude hollered as he marched out of the store.

“That dude doesn’t want a slice of pizza,” a young man with AirPods said. An older gentleman at a table added, “Yeah, there’s no way that hundred is real.”

Counter guy chimed in, “I could tell immediately that it was counterfeit.”

“Does that happen a lot?” I inquired, thinking of the many dreams I’ve had in which I pull out counterfeit bills to pay for stuff and am both enraged and embarrassed about how clearly fake they are. (According to several dream-interpretation sites, that means I have issues of self-worth and financial insecurity or that I “will have trouble with some unruly and worthless person” or might “encounter conflicts with insincere people.” Who, me?)

Counter guy said, “Yes, people come in here all the time trying to pass bad money.”

I then noticed that he had put my bagels in the toaster and they were now burned.

“Oh, sorry about that,” he said, and disappeared for a second time.

I wondered where he had gone, but when he reappeared he had two fresh bagels with him and proceeded to make our sandwiches, with generous dollops of lox spread and whitefish salad. While I was paying by card, coat dude reentered, practically demanding that counter guy take the hundred and make change.

Counter guy stood his ground.

Coat dude angrily shook his head; it looked like it might get dangerous. He then approached everyone again, in addition to a new patron, asking them if they had change for a hundred, as if it wasn’t an unusual request. Each of us quietly said no, trying to avoid eye contact.

He huffed off without change or a slice.

“That guy must be really hungry,” I said.

“Well, he’s not getting anything here,” one of the other patrons said.

To which I responded, “Happy holidays, everyone — and may all your money be real in 2025.”

Oh, and by the way, the bagels were delicious.

[You can follow Mark Rifkin and This Week in New York every day here.]