‘People Will Remember It’: The Bagel plans North Shore return this year

After eight long years apart, The Bagel Restaurant and Deli and the North Shore will be reunited.

The Bagel, an iconic Jewish eatery that operated in Skokie’s Old Orchard Mall for 31 years until 2018, is opening a new restaurant in downtown Glenview. 

Marvin Barsky, owner of The Bagel, confirmed he has signed a letter of intent to enter the ground floor retail space of a new apartment building in the village at 1850 Glenview Road. He said architects are now drawing up plans for the space and he hopes to open by Labor Day weekend.

“I’m confident that the name — The Bagel — people will remember it,” Barsky said. “I feel real confident that, hopefully, we can bring back some of our old customers.”

If all goes as planned, the restaurant will fill a 5,000-square-foot, first-floor space with up to 150 customers just a few blocks away from Glenview’s Metra station, or an 11-minute drive from its former spot in Skokie. 

Barsky said the restaurant’s menu will remain unchanged, just as it has been for decades. Originally run by three generations of the same family, The Bagel has become well known for its spread of classic Jewish delicacies, from lox platters to gefilte fish to matzo ball soup.

The restaurant will have a 35-40 person staff, a liquor license and a “party room” akin to its previous iteration in Skokie, Barsky said. 

Elsa and Herman Golenzar, two Holocaust survivors, first opened The Bagel in Chicago’s Albany Park neighborhood in 1950, a publication from the Chicago Jewish Historical Society shows.

The business reportedly moved to its second location in Chicago’s West Rogers Park in 1977 and expanded to Skokie a decade later. It then closed its West Rogers Park location and opened its only current site in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood, 3107 N. Broadway Ave., in 1992.

Barsky took over The Bagel’s Lakeview spot in 2023 after Danny Wolf, the third-generation owner of the deli, died in 2022, Barsky said. 

As The Record previously reported, Barsky said he remained in consistent contact with Westfield, the real estate company that owns Old Orchard, “pestering” the firm nearly every two weeks about the possibility of reopening in the mall. 

But Barsky eventually gained an understanding last year that there “was no room for me” at Old Orchard, so he toured potential other sites in Highland Park, Winnetka, Wilmette, Glencoe, Northbrook, Deerfield and Glenview, he said. 

Earlier this year, he and Rocio Carreras, the soon-to-be general manager of the new restaurant, were on their way to look at another potential property for The Bagel in Glenview when they drove past an empty space downtown with a “For Lease” sign, Barsky said. 

Carreras soon called the number and they toured the space in the apartment building, a new 62-unit development called the Cerca that anticipates welcoming its first tenants in June.

Now a lease agreement is being drafted and restaurant equipment is secured and currently waiting in storage; pending approval from the Village of Glenview, construction should start in May, Barsky said. He noted the time frame is “tight,” but he is eager to open before winter. 

Carreras, who manages The Bagel and Barsky’s two other restaurants, will pivot to primarily focusing on the restaurant’s new North Shore location. Like the deli’s previous owners, she has followed into the business in part because of family ties. 

“It’s weird because everyone said that I was kind of born here because my dad has been working here for what, 40 years,” Carreras said, referencing her father, the head chef at The Bagel. “So now I’m going to have my own baby — Glenview.”

Barsky, who is 81, said he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t nervous about opening a new restaurant. But he still gets 10 to 15 inquiries a week from his regulars, many of whom drive into Chicago on the weekends, asking when The Bagel is returning to The North Shore.

Given the rich cultural legacy of Jewish delis in Chicago’s suburbs that Barsky said is now “fading,” and The Bagel’s role as one of the staple Jewish delis in The North Shore, he has remained committed through all these years on returning the restaurant to the area. 

“I had a memory of all the times I used to eat at Old Orchard. I was still in high school, and so many of my relatives and friends would eat at The Bagel and The Bagel was just known,” Barsky said. 

“I just want to bring that back, I just personally have a goal to bring that back to the suburbs, where it used to be. And we were lucky enough to find this.”

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