restaurant

OK, maybe I'm stretching the restaurant definition a bit here, but the new bagelry does serve omelettes and sandwiches, in addition to bagels and muffins and some Krispy Kreme doughnuts. The bagels are baked on the premises (according to the clerk) and they are gigantic. Not my favorite kind of bagel--too big and too bready--but an acceptable one. The real charm lies in the store's extremely thorough homage to the subway and the Smith and 9th Street stop. Blue tiles spell out the stop among the white subway tiles on the wall, and various signs about the store reference the F train. There's even an F-Lines sandwich with beef salami, tomatoes, olive oil and basil. Though only open a week or so, the store was doing a steady business this morning. Will the skanky coffeeshop across the street go out of business? Is this another small step in Smith-9th gentrification? Or will the shop's fresh and shiny surfaces soon be covered in neighborhood-appropriate graffiti?