Harvard Square is getting a PopUp Bagels location, the third in Massachusetts after shops in Boston Seaport and Wellesley, according to a Friday email from the company.
The storefront will be at 1430 Massachusetts Ave., known as College House – a 50,000 square foot, six-story mixed-use building across from Harvard Yard. There is empty space in the building next to Otto Pizza, but this PopUp Bagels will instead replace a departing Pokeworks at the corner of Church Street, said Denise Jillson, executive director of the Harvard Square Business Association.
When Pokeworks closes and how long a buildout for PopUp Bagels will take is unknown, Jillson said.
PopUp Bagels also has a shop planned for Assembly Square in Somerville this year that was announced in February.
The chain, founded in 2021 by Adam Goldberg in Connecticut – it has four stores there and four in New York – is famous for serving hot, whole bagels. Not only does it not mess with sandwiches; it serves bagels only in plain, salt, sesame, poppyseed and everything varieties and a limited number of spreads, with plain and scallion cream cheeses varieties always available and others rotating.
Customers can’t even get them sliced onsite. The company advertises that its bagels are to be used to “grip, rip and dip” into the spreads.
“PopUp Bagels creates a real sensation in the neighborhoods where it opens,” said Zvi Gordon, chief executive of College House’s leasing company, Gazit Horizons. “We anticipate them being a very popular addition.”
The competition has grown fierce in Cambridge. Harvard Square hosts Black Sheep Bagels; Rebelle Artisan Bagels opened last year in Kendall Square in competition with Mamaleh’s, following a Brooklyn Bagel Factory in Inman Square; and Bagelsaurus near Porter Square recently expanded and still has long lines daily.
PopUp has had a similar effect where it opens. “It is exciting because of the amount of buzz,” Jillson said. Considering how long people will spend in line for them, “they must be delicious.”
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