After eating 200 NYC bagels, Brooklyn man to host Queens bagel tour
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Mike Varley, who ate 200 bagels with his wife in 2020, is planning to host a Queens bagel tour in the spring. File photo by Ravi Krishnappa
By Ryan Schwach
You can soon celebrate the bagels of Queens will a new tour through the best spots according to bagel connoisseur Mike Varley.
In April, Varley, who several years ago ate and rated over 200 New York City bagels, is working with NYC Bagel Tours founder Sam Silverman to tour his favorite places in Queens to get a classic New York bagel.
“Queens is a great place for bagels,” Varley told the Eagle.
In 2020, Varley and his wife decided to walk five marathons a week for a year across the city and track their progress in a project called “2020: Total Clarity.” But along the 7,000 miles walked, another project arose in the form of everythingiseverything.nyc.
“While you're doing that, you get hungry,” Varley said. “So, we had decided to start reviewing bagels from every neighborhood in New York City because we'd be in the area, because it's an iconic New York food.”
After adding 50 bagels in a month, Varley’s site, which grades bagel shops on ambiance and solely the quality of their everything bagels with scallion cream cheese, reached over 200 detailed profiles of NYC bagel places.
Now, he’s ready for others to experience his favorites.
Although other borough tours will be going in February, the Queens tour is currently scheduled for April 1.
“We get an opportunity to walk in the footsteps of some of our marathon routes, and experience my favorite bagels from each borough, including, of course, Queens,” said Varley.
The Queen's trip will tentatively go to three different bagel shops, starting in Astoria with Between The Bagel NY, which Varley rated as the eighth-best bagel in the borough and number 25 in the city. Then on to the famous Utopia Bagels, the first one Varley tried for the project.
Varley has Utopia as the best bagel in Queens and the third-best in the city.
“Just in general. It's a very friendly, welcoming environment,” he said. “All the highest stores have that kind of intangible quality.”
Varley’s previous best bagel in Queens, which was also his favorite bagel in the city, came from P&C Bagels in Middle Village, which closed in October of 2022.
The trip will also head to Bagel Parlor in Whitestone, which he rated as the third-best bagel in Queens.
Varley also gave high ratings to Liberty Bagels in Jackson Heights, Gotta Getta Bagel and Forest Hills Bagels, both in Forest Hills.
“I'm really excited to do this particular tour,” Varley said. “We expect that people will be coming in big groups. Bring your friends and we'll do a road trip we'll be driving by Flushing Meadows and see some of the stuff that you might not see otherwise on a typical New York tour…It's a great day to be able to get out with people and just kind of BS and talk about what their favorite bagels are and the experiences we had – it's just a great vessel for conversation.”
