Anyone with a craving for bagels can walk into a grocery store and pick up a half-dozen doughnut-shaped delicacies. But perhaps nowhere in The Woodlands can a bagel fanatic enjoy such a vast selection of New York-inspired bagels than Brooklyn Cafe.

"There's not many places around here that serve bagels, at least at the quality that we do," general manager Graham Smyth said. "We make everything from scratch three or four days a week, so they're really fresh. You just can't beat our bagels. They're top of the line."

Located in the Panther Creek Village Center for 19 years, Brooklyn Cafe regularly offers 20 bagel flavors with about 20 rotating flavors of the month, as well as nine different flavors of cream cheese. Bagel flavors include basic staples, such as plain, everything and sesame, to the more unusual selections, such as the red-colored strawberry bagel, the basil Parmesan bagel and the Fiesta bagel, made with sun-dried tomatoes and jalapeos.

Smyth said all bagels and cream cheeses are made fresh from scratch. So dedicated to recreating the taste of New York-bagels, the restaurant goes as far as using a concentrator in its kitchen that helps imitate the taste of New York water.

"We try to stay as close as we can to New York-style bagels," he said.

Customers can order a variety of sandwiches and burgers on bagels, as well. Smyth said breakfast sandwiches are the restaurant's best seller, featuring egg, cheese and either bacon, sausage or ham. For lunch, restaurant goers can enjoy bagels, bread or wraps topped with turkey, ham, roast beef and pastrami.

"We get a lot of weird sandwiches," he said. "People will come in and get a burger on cinnamon raisin, which is a little bit unique. But whatever your taste buds want, pretty much we can do it."

The restaurant also serves breakfast fare, such as muffins, French toast and sausage bagels, as well as soups and salads for lunch and a few dessert items.

Smyth said Brooklyn Cafe was opened in 1994 by previous owner Nick Cannistra, a Brooklyn native. Cannistra sold the company a year and a half ago to the Altus Culinary Group, which owns the Blue Mug Cafe and Yucatan Taco Stand in The Woodlands.

Altus hopes to expand on the restaurant's catering business and plans for renovations this fall, Smyth said. The new owners are even considering expanding the restaurant's hours to offer a dinner menu, he said.

The second Woodlands location on Hwy. 242—opened in 2004—closed more than a month ago. Smyth said he believes the restaurant may have been too far from I-45. However, he said the owners are looking for other locations for possible expansions.

"[Altus] wants to make this the main site of the Brooklyn Cafe," Smyth said. "From here on when they franchise out, they'll know how to create them."

Specialties

  • Bagels: Brooklyn Cafe offers 20 different flavors of bagels and nine different flavors of cream cheese. The restaurant even offers bagels and cream cheese flavors of the month, which will be pumpkin and pumpkin cream cheese from October through November. $1 per bagel. $2.75 per bagel with cream cheese. $10.50 for 13 bagels.
  • Sausage Bagels: Brooklyn Cafe wraps sausage with bagel dough and bakes them until crispy. $2.40. Mini sausage bagels are $.80 each.
  • Breakfast sandwiches/wraps: Customers can top their favorite bagel or bread with egg, cheese and their choice of Boar's Head ham, sausage or bacon. $4.75. Breakfast wraps are stuffed with egg, cheese, hash browns, onion and choice of meat. $5.50
  • Sandwiches: Whether on bread or choice of bagel, Brooklyn Cafe offers a variety of sandwiches including egg salad, tuna salad, chicken salad, turkey breast, corned beef, roast beef, pastrami, chicken breast, ham, BLT and garden vegetable. $6–$6.25.

Customer comments

"There's no other place to get a bagel [in The Woodlands]. If you go anywhere else, you're not going to get the same quality."

- Brad McSherry, The Woodlands

"That's what makes it stand out, is the variety and availability of the bagels."

- Chad Killian, Spring

"We probably come here at least once a week. It's a great place to eat, and it has very good food."

- Laurie Miller, The Woodlands

Brooklyn Cafe , 4775 W. Panther Creek Drive , The Woodlands, 281-298-7488, www.thebrooklyncafe.com

Hours: Mon.-Fri. 6 a.m.—4 p.m., Sun. 7 a.m.—3 p.m.