The Financial District is a funny thing. Monday-Friday I have to walk down the middle of the streets while dodging traffic just to avoid the hoards of pedestrians dominating the sidewalks. Come Saturday and Sunday, I'm lucky if I can find a grocery store open past 5 p.m. Apparently Leo's is the place go for a weekend breakfast. If you come here on a weekend morning, expect to wait at least 20-minutes. The line will most likely be out the door and wrapped around the street corner. In all fairness, the store only holds about six people at a time, so it doesn't take much to move that party outdoors.
They have a ton of options. every possible cream cheese concoction you could dream of and standard sandwich toppings like chicken salad, tuna salad, smoke salmon, etc. Their scallion cream cheese is ridiculously good. Don't leave Leo's without it. I'm guessing they have about a dozen bagel flavors. In fact, on St. Patrick's day, they even made green bagels!
Another reason I like this place: they don't act personally offended when I ask for my bagel to be toasted. Murray's Bagels, a NYC local and tourist hotspot, which is famous good reasons, refuses to toast their bagels. It's their claim to fame, and also the reason I refuse to go there. If I'm going to make the trek to Chelsea to get a toasted everything bagel with scallion cream cheese, which, I'm paying for, BTW, I really mean it when I say I want it toasted. Not a problem at Leo's.
Service has been a little questionable. I've had both great and downright rude experiences. But for $3.25 for a toasted BLT-bagel sandwich, I can't be too picky.
I tend to get obsessed with a certain food and eat nothing but that food for a few weeks, or until I have overdosed on the item and no longer like it. That happened last month at Leo's. I got pretty into ordering a toasted everything bagel with scallion cream cheese, lettuce, tomato, and bacon. And by "pretty into" I mean that I honestly ordered it for lunch and dinner for four days straight. That being said, I lost my cool and got a little aggressive with one of the servers. Picture this:
(ring, ring, ring)
Leo: "Leos!"
Amanda: "Hi, what time do you close?"
Leo: "6 p.m."
Amanda: "Perefect. Can I place an order to pick up in ten minutes?"
Leo: "No...we're closed."
Amanda "No, it's 5:49, you're closed a 6."
Leo: "We're slow tonight so I'm closing now."
Amanda: "Right...acutally you close in 11 minutes. Toasted everything bagel, scallion cream cheese, lettuce, tomato and bacon. Be there in 5."
Leo: "No, I'm closing now, you can pick that up in the morning."
Amanda: "Huh. Thank you for that option, I appreciate your creative thinking.
(click)
Oh, uh-uh.
I promptly hung up and raced out of my office and down the street. I arrived at Leo's at 5:55 just as my special friend was locking the door. I let myself in gave him a friendly "Hellllooooo, so glad you're still open, that's a pleasant surprise. Toasted everything bagel, scallion cream cheese, lettuce, tomato and bacon!"
My bagel tasted like spit that evening.
I've been to Leo's enough times to know that it's consistently good food. I always order some variation of a toasted everything bagel with scallion cream cheese. Whether it's with tomatoes, bacon, both, or none, it's always good. If there is such a thing as too much cream cheese, Leo's has that problem. There's easily enough cream cheese on each bagel to smear on another.
Despite the iffy service, Leo's is by far the best bagel establishment in the Financial District. Great selection, dynamite bagels, and even better scallion cream cheese.
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