Big Apple Bagels, at 61st and O, is closing its doors. After Homer's left next door its days were numbered. Its last day is March 23.
I'm not a big bagel guy so the closing doesn't personally affect me. I'm sure many of you are fans, however, and will be sad to see the store close. I would see Big Apple Bagels on "best of" lists here and there, so they were doing something right.
For those of you who loved Big Apple Bagels, where will you go after they close? There's a Panera to the east and Two Twins Cafe to the northwest that might fill the gap. Are there other possibilities in the neighborhood?
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See what your friends and neighbors have to say about this.
We wuit going last fall. Used to be a three morning per week stop. Two Twins was even worse service. So, I wait until I am downtown and go to Brugger’s.
sorry for the spelling….Quit
Never went there but it’s a shame to see a place like that close. I don’t understand these leasing companies that own property and drive off perfectly good tenants and I’m tired of seeing storefronts sit vacant for months at a time. O St. is the main drag in town and right now between the potholes and the empty storefronts, it would be hard to convince visitors that they aren’t in the Rust Belt. The amount of vacant retail in Lincoln is appalling for a city that has an unemployment rate that is as low as it is. The city needs to do more to allow people to start their own businesses and needs to put a lot more pressure on these leasing companies to find tenants for these empty storefronts. I know we are in a recession and banks aren’t necessarily lending out cash left and right, but perhaps the city could find a way to make it easier for new businesses to get into a space. Vacant retail is a loss of tax revenue for the city and just generally makes Lincoln look like an unfriendly place to do business.
I’ve gone to BAB for a bagel in the morning anywhere from 1 to 5 days a week for a year or more, and I remember patronizing that joint as early as 1997 or so. I will greatly miss them. There’s a CBC Thompson Realty sign in front, but they’re not the owners, just the local agent. If you read the letter that BAB has posted on their storefront, the company who owns the building is from Florida. The letter is also not very nice: it pretty much reads “F* you, get out now.” With the (lack of) speed that they’ve been cleaning up the Homers leftovers, I don’t have much faith that they’ll fix things up and have anything re-leased in that space anytime soon.
I’ll probably give up my morning bagel. Panera is good but pricey, and not speedy compared to BAB.
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