NYC Icons Collide: Carmine's x Tompkins Square Bagels Pizza Bagel Collab

Two New York institutions that rarely need an introduction decided to share the same plate. Carmine's, the family-style Italian-American restaurant that has been feeding the city in huge, shareable portions for thirty-five years, and Tompkins Square Bagels, the East Village shop that has spent fifteen years hand-rolling and kettle-boiling some of the most talked-about bagels in Manhattan, teamed up for a limited pizza bagel series built for people who love red sauce, real dough, and the kind of collaboration that only happens when both sides care about the details.

This is not a stunt bagel. It is a four-week run where a new featured pizza bagel debuts each Monday, with Carmine's flavors riding on TSB's bagels across every Tompkins Square Bagels location in Manhattan. If you are visiting New York this month, or you live here and want a reason to break up your usual order, this is the kind of drop worth planning around. Monday becomes the day you check the menu, the social feeds, or the counter board to see what the kitchen is running for that week.

Below is the full breakdown of how the collab works, what is in the opening week build, how the schedule runs, where to get it, a quick history of why pizza bagels belong to New York, and what to know before you go.

Why This Collab Matters: Red Sauce Meets Kettle-Boiled Dough

Carmine's built its reputation on the Italian-American Sunday table. Big platters of pasta, seafood, and classics that are meant to be passed family-style, with the kind of hospitality that feels closer to a wedding feast than a quiet dinner for two. Restaurateur Artie Cutler's vision for Carmine's was simple in concept and hard to execute at scale: make every meal feel generous, loud, warm, and unmistakably New York. That story lives on at carminesnyc.com, where regulars and first-timers alike book tables, order catering, and plan the kind of group nights that Carmine's was designed for.

Tompkins Square Bagels comes from a different corner of the same city, but the philosophy rhymes. Founder Christopher Pugliese learned the craft young, built the shop on Avenue A in 2011, and grew it without losing the neighborhood energy that made the original location feel like an extension of the park across the street. The bagels are hand-rolled, kettle-boiled, and baked in the tradition serious New Yorkers argue about in the best way. For more on what that process actually means, TSB's guide to NYC bagel traditions, from boiling to baking walks through why technique matters as much as toppings.

When those two identities meet, you get something that feels obvious only after someone does the work. Pizza and bagels are both round, both dough-forward, both tied to how New York eats. Putting Carmine's sauces and builds on a TSB bagel is less about novelty and more about letting each brand do what it already does well.

How the Four-Week Series Works: New Pizza Bagel Every Monday

The format is built for repeat visits. Each Monday during the promotion, a new featured pizza bagel enters the rotation. The prior week's special steps aside. You get four distinct chapters over four weeks, which means locals and tourists who care about the full story have a reason to come back, and people who only catch one week still get a clear beginning, middle, and end to the run.

Think of Monday as drop day. If you want the latest build on day one, plan a weekday morning visit after the switch. If you are traveling and only have a Saturday, you can still catch that week's feature until the window closes, but the storytelling hook in the campaign is the Monday refresh. That rhythm matches how limited menu items actually move in busy Manhattan shops: one clear moment to announce, then a week of service while the line does what the line always does.

Spectrum News NY1 covered the partnership when it launched, with Carmine's chef Glenn Rolnick discussing how the teams narrowed a long list of ideas down to four finished bagels and why both brands wanted the series to feel fun without defaulting to plain cheese and tomato sauce on a plain bagel. That interview is a useful companion if you want chef-level context alongside this page. See the references section below for the link.

The Full Four-Week Lineup: What to Expect

Week One: Everything Pumpernickel, Tomato Basil, and the Full Topping Stack (May 4th - May 10th)

Week one is the opening statement. The base is an everything pumpernickel bagel from TSB, which gives you deep malt notes from the pumpernickel and savory pop from the everything seasoning. On top of that foundation, the build uses Carmine's tomato basil sauce, melted mozzarella, roasted red peppers, caramelized onions, and a finish of fresh basil oil.

Each layer answers a specific question. The tomato basil sauce brings brightness and herb without drifting into heavy cream territory. Mozzarella gives the stretch and melt you expect from a pizza-adjacent bite. Roasted red peppers add sweetness and a little smoke. Caramelized onions deepen the sweetness and tie back to long-cooked Italian-American flavor. The basil oil at the end lifts the whole thing and keeps the finish fresh, so the bagel does not eat like a heavy slice that lost its way.

If you are ordering for the first time during week one, this is the sandwich to benchmark the series against. It is built to read as distinctly Carmine's and distinctly TSB at the same time. 

Week Two: Spicy Soppressata Pizza Bagel (May 11th - May 17th)

This one brings the heat and is already a favorite from the launch party. The base shifts to a rosemary garlic bagel, which gets loaded with Carmine's marinara sauce, spicy soppressata, mozzarella, pecorino romano, and a generous hot honey drizzle. It is a little sweet, a little spicy, and a lot of New York. The hot honey cuts through the richness of the cured meat and the sharp bite of the pecorino perfectly.

Week Three: Vodka Chicken Parm Pizza Bagel (May 18th - May 24th)

For those who want a heavier, sandwich-style bite, this is the week to circle on the calendar. Built on a rich egg bagel, this variation features Carmine's famous vodka sauce, crispy chicken cutlet, melted mozzarella, pecorino romano, creamy ricotta, and a touch of pesto. It takes the best elements of a classic chicken parm hero and reformats them for a bagel, using the egg dough to hold up against the weight of the cutlet and the creamy vodka sauce.

Week Four: Eggs in Purgatory Pizza Bagel (May 25th - May 31st)

Stay on the Monday Rhythm

The practical move is to watch Tompkins Square Bagels on Instagram and the shop's announcements at the counter, and to ask the team what is featured when you arrive. If you are local, Monday morning is your reset. If you are visiting for a long weekend, pick the week you are in town and treat that build as your collectible moment from the series.

What you can count on is consistency of craft. The bagels stay hand-rolled and kettle-boiled. The sauces and toppings stay in Carmine's wheelhouse. The collaboration stays time-limited, which is the whole point. Limited runs reward the people who show up.

Where to Get It: All Four Manhattan Tompkins Square Bagels Shops

The pizza bagel series runs at every Tompkins Square Bagels location in Manhattan. Use the locations hub for addresses and maps, with two anchors called out below for visitors who want the most iconic room versus the uptown convenience.

The original flagship sits at the East Village bagel shop on Avenue A, on the edge of Tompkins Square Park. It is the spiritual home of the brand and the backdrop for most of the photography people associate with TSB.

The Upper East Side bagel shop on Third Avenue carries the same menu with extended evening availability on the schedule outlined below, which matters if you are uptown and want a later pickup window.

The Full Menu Context

The pizza bagel is a featured item, not a replacement for the rest of what TSB does. The full menu still carries the breakfast sandwiches, smoked fish, cream cheeses, and bakery items regulars build their weeks around. If someone in your group wants the collaboration and someone else wants a classic bacon, egg, and cheese on an everything bagel, everyone still wins.

For more on how the shop thinks about quality and neighborhood place, read the About page. It is the clearest statement of why collaborations like this one feel on-brand rather than random.

A Short History of Pizza Bagels in New York

The pizza bagel is a tri-state childhood memory for millions of people, but New York is where the idea makes the most sense on paper. You already have the best dough culture in the country arguing with itself in the best way. You already have Italian-American red sauce traditions embedded in everyday eating. Putting tomato sauce and cheese on a split bagel and running it under a broiler or through an oven is not fine dining. It is practical, fast, and deeply familiar.

School cafeterias, office break rooms, and freezer cases turned the pizza bagel into a mass-market shortcut. What Carmine's and TSB are doing here pulls the idea back toward craft. Instead of a frozen base, you have a kettle-boiled bagel. Instead of a generic sauce, you have Carmine's tomato basil build. Instead of a marketing stunt, you have a timed series that asks you to visit more than once.

That is the difference between a pizza bagel as a vague category and a pizza bagel as a New York food event.

If you want a quick cultural anchor, think about how New York eats lunch on the move. A slice folds. A bagel wraps. Both are handheld. Both reward a hot counter and a short wait. The pizza bagel hybrid is almost too honest for its own good, which is why it both became a punchline in frozen food aisles and keeps coming back whenever a real kitchen decides to treat it with respect.

Carmine's Sauces and Why Tomato Basil Leads Week One

Carmine's did not become a household name by cutting corners on sauce. Guests know the marinara profile from years of family-style dinners, and anyone who has followed the restaurant's retail story knows that Carmine's also leaned into jarred sauces when guests started asking to take the flavor home. That retail chapter matters for a collaboration like this one because it shows how seriously the brand treats its tomato line outside the dining room.

Tomato basil is a natural week-one choice for a pizza bagel. It is bright, familiar, and legible to almost every guest. You do not need a long explanation at the counter. You taste basil, you taste tomato, you recognize the mozzarella pull, and the peppers and onions do the work of making the bite feel finished rather than thin.

If you are comparing this build to a plain cheese slice, the difference is intention. The everything pumpernickel base adds contrast and depth. The roasted red peppers add a soft, almost smoky sweetness that plays against the tang of tomato. Caramelized onions add a low, slow sweetness that reads as cooking, not as a raw topping. The basil oil at the end is the bridge between pizza logic and sandwich logic. It keeps the finish aromatic instead of heavy.

How to Order Like You Planned the Visit

Walk in knowing three things: which location you are using, whether you want the collab item or a split order for a group, and what time you are arriving relative to the campaign hours.

For a solo visit, order the featured pizza bagel and a coffee. Keep it simple. Eat it while it still has its best texture. For a duo, split the featured item and add a classic egg sandwich or a simple bagel with scallion cream cheese so you can compare old-school TSB with the collaboration bite. For a group, place a larger order through normal catering channels if you are feeding an office, but confirm availability of the limited item directly with the shop. Limited runs do not always scale the same way standing menu items do.

If you are visiting from out of town, pair the stop with Tompkins Square Park when you use the Avenue A shop. It is the most natural New York sequence in this collaboration: bagel in hand, bench in the park, ten minutes of people-watching, then the rest of your downtown day.

Social Media, Sightings, and Sharing the Drop

Limited collaborations move faster when the city can see them. If you are posting, tag Tompkins Square Bagels and Carmine's in your caption so the moment is easy to find. If you are not posting, you still benefit from the buzz because busy shops tend to stay busy for a reason. A strong Monday photo of a loaded bagel does not need a filter. Natural light outside the Avenue A shop or along Third Avenue uptown is enough.

The respectful way to film inside any small shop is to keep the line moving, keep the counter staff unblocked, and remember that everyone behind you is also trying to eat before work. Shoot your cross-section shot after you step away from the register. The bagel will still photograph well, and the room will stay functional.

The Broader NYC Food Collab Moment

Limited collaborations between legacy restaurants and specialty shops are not new in New York, but they have become easier to notice in the social era. A great collab does three things at once. It respects both brands. It produces something you cannot get by ordering from each place separately. It gives people a story to tell when they get back home.

This series checks those boxes. Carmine's brings the red sauce identity. TSB brings the bagel craft. The weekly Monday drop gives the story a beat people can follow. If you are an Instagram or TikTok regular, the visual of a loaded pizza bagel on a real deck oven bagel is almost unfairly easy to film. If you are not a content person at all, you still get a good lunch.

Conclusion

If you care about New York food, you already know both names. Carmine's for the big-table Italian-American feast. Tompkins Square Bagels for the hand-rolled morning ritual. This collaboration puts them on the same tray for a short window, with a new featured pizza bagel every Monday for four weeks and week one locked in as everything pumpernickel with Carmine's tomato basil sauce, mozzarella, roasted red peppers, caramelized onions, and fresh basil oil.

Show up early, check the board, order confidently, and if you miss a week, you miss a week. That is how limited runs work. The city keeps moving, and the bagels keep boiling. When the series ends, you will still have the standing menu, the same kettle boil, and the same neighborhood shop. The collaboration is the bonus round. Follow along for each Monday release so you do not wonder what you missed. That is the whole point.

References

• Carmine's Italian Restaurant (official site: reservations, delivery, and the Carmine's story)

• Spectrum News NY1: Carmine's restaurant, Tompkins Square Bagels team up for pizza bagel collaboration (launch coverage and chef interview)

FAQ

When does each new pizza bagel drop?
Each new featured pizza bagel is released on Monday during the four-week series. Check TSB's announcements or ask at the counter for the current week.

Where is the collab available?
At all four Tompkins Square Bagels Manhattan locations. Start from the locations page or go direct to Avenue A or the Upper East Side shop.

What are the hours?
Monday through Friday, 7am to 5pm (Upper East Side until 6:30pm on weekdays). Saturday and Sunday until 5:30pm.

What is in week one?
Everything pumpernickel bagel with Carmine's tomato basil sauce, melted mozzarella, roasted red peppers, caramelized onions, and fresh basil oil.

Is this available for delivery?
Confirm delivery and pickup options through Tompkins Square Bagels channels for your address. Limited items sometimes vary by platform.

How long does the series run?
Four weeks total, with a distinct featured build each week.

Can I still order regular menu items?
Yes. The menu stays fully available alongside the collaboration.

Does Carmine's serve the pizza bagel at the restaurant?
This series is staged at Tompkins Square Bagels Manhattan locations. For Carmine's dining and catering, visit carminesnyc.com.

What if I cannot come on Monday?
You can still catch that week's feature during normal service days until the next Monday rotation. Monday is simply the day the new build debuts.

Is the everything pumpernickel bagel always available?
The everything pumpernickel base is specified for week one of this series. Later weeks may move to other TSB bagel varieties. Ask the team when you order.

Visit any Tompkins Square Bagels Manhattan location on Monday for the latest pizza bagel drop, or stop in during the week's service hours to catch the current featured build before it rotates. Start with the menu, bookmark the Avenue A shop if you want the classic room, and use the Upper East Side location if you need that later weekday cutoff.