After seven years of roadblocks, Cleo Bagels finally opens in West Philly

There’s something about Cleo Bagels, the new neighborhood bagel shop just off West Philly’s Cedar Park, that feels peaceful. With morning light streaming through the big front window and calming shades of peach and mint green on the walls, you feel your jaw unclench, your shoulders relax. The backyard is a flower-filled brick patio where you can enjoy your bagel, coated top and bottom with toasty seeds, and sip a life-giving iced coffee away from the bustle of Baltimore Avenue.

That sense of peace doesn’t give a hint of the struggle that it took for Cleo’s Bagels to finally open this past weekend. It’s been baker and owner Alex Malamy’s dream since he started making bagels in the kitchen of his basement apartment seven years ago. What began as a literal underground club for friends and neighbors is now a cheery, sun-drenched storefront. But the journey to brick-and-mortar was a bumpy one.

“Part of the reason I started making bagels from home back in 2016 was because I didn’t have an option in the neighborhood that I felt strongly enough about to make my spot,” he said. By the next year, he was baking semi-regularly under the name Dodo Bagels—and selling out all his small kitchen could produce for a growing email list of friends and neighbors. That included his now-partner Ilana Silber, a project manager and ceramicist with a background in hospitality who’s been his creative collaborator in the project.

As demand outstripped the capacity of his home kitchen, Malamy began hauling a granny cart of gear and ingredients to prep at Enjay’s Pizza on the Penn campus. He continually tweaked his recipe—a shorter proof, a longer bake, a new technique for making toppings stick.

“Alex is such a nerd about dough, and it shows,” said Sarah Thompson, a fellow West Philly baker who sells biscuits under the name Tall Poppy. “He’s so intentional with everything he does. The shape, the smell, the crumb—everything is perfect.”

By 2019, Malamy was selling out pop-ups at the Clark Park Farmers’ Market and Lil’ Pop Shop, and his hunt for a permanent home for the bagel business had begun in earnest. Then the pandemic ground those plans to a halt.

But COVID-related difficulties and delays weren’t the only setbacks. In 2021, Malamy underwent surgery on his jaw that left him unable to eat his own product for 18 months. “It felt like this weird O. Henry twist, being a bagel maker that can’t eat a bagel,” he said. “Just like having a bagel shop that can’t actually function to make a bagel.”

Not long after his surgery, Malamy signed a lease for the space at 5013 Baltimore Avenue—which turned out to be the long-boarded-up home of the erstwhile Danger Danger Gallery, a DIY music venue where Malamy attended punk shows back in the late aughts. Aside from the usual construction issues—the building had been taken down to the studs—the process of getting the three-phase electrical service that would power his shiny new dough mixer and deck oven was beset with mishaps out of his control—which pushed back the opening even further.

As frustrating as it was, he admits that the long delay gave him and Silber time to fine-tune their vision for the shop and focus on the details. “It’s afforded me opportunities to give my attention to parts of the design or the space that I otherwise might have been pulled away from,” he said. That included a complete rebrand, in collaboration with Silber, friend and interior designer Meg Woodin, and graphic designer Emily Barile. The business relaunched with those tranquil pastel tones and a new name: Cleo Bagels, after the couple’s beloved pup.

“It feels like I’m realizing a vision, and that the hard work and intention that’s been put into this is finding its purpose,” Malamy said. “The space is becoming what I set out to make it, and that feels really good.”

Cleo Bagels opened its doors last weekend with bagels—hand-rolled to create a nautilus-like swirl, baked to a rich, burnished brown, with a chewy yet light interior—pillowy bialys, and sweets like the Apple Thing, a tender apple muffin dunked in butter and rolled in cinnamon sugar, plus Lancaster-based Necessary Coffee and kombucha from Movement Labs. For now, they’re open on weekends only, with plans to expand the schedule in the near future.

Cleo’s menu features classic add-ons like scallion cream cheese, whitefish (picked in-house), nova lox, and house-made jam, plus a handful of dairy-free and veggie-heavy items made from whole ingredients. Bentl’s Lentils, a blend of brown lentils and walnuts, is a veganized take on a vegetarian chopped liver spread Malamy’s aunt used to make, served as a sandwich with finely julienned carrots, celery, and bell pepper. He cultures his own smooth, airy cashew cream cheese using vegan yogurt, and the chickpeas for the Garbanz, a tuna salad-esque sandwich topped with red onion and potato chips, are cooked from dry in the shop.

But the bialy might be Malamy’s favorite. Rather than the low-hydration dough, hand-rolling, and boiling that define his bagels, the Cleo bialy is made with a high-hydration recipe to allow for bigger bubbles in the crumb and softer, yielding texture. Rounds of dough are dimpled to hold a spoonful of chopped fresh onion and poppy seeds before they’re baked—no boiling step. You can order one with whatever schmear or sandwich you’d like, but he thinks they’re best when served simply: split, toasted, and slathered in butter. “It has all those nooks and crannies and just acts as a sponge,” he said.

There are also breakfast sandwiches, built around prep-friendly hard-boiled eggs—mashed into a herby, cornichon-studded egg salad or steeped in soy and sliced to top what may be Malamy’s most intriguing creation: the Ramen Thing, spread with togarashi mayo and filled with ramen add-ins like bamboo shoots, scallions, crispy seaweed, and pickled ginger.

The line at Saturday’s opening stretched nearly to 50th Street. Looking out the shop window the next morning, the couple thought the pouring rain had kept the crowds away—but the even longer line of bagel devotees outfitted in ponchos and rain jackets had simply queued up in the other direction.

“My mom’s an OBGYN, and when I would talk to her about [the timeline], she would say, ‘You know, some births are painful,’” Silber said. “We’re so excited to be moving into a new phase of this experience, where we finally get to take it all in and realize, ‘Oh my God, we brought life into this place.’ .”

“Leading up to opening the shop, I’ve heard from so many people talking about the traditions that they had with their families around eating and sharing bagels,” Malamy said. “I hope this is going to be the kind of spot that becomes someone’s weekly tradition for a very long time.”