Pocketing The Dough
Wars over the best New York bagel have likely ensued since the first Jewish immigrants arrived in lower Manhattan. “Zabar’s!” some Jewish families shout about where to buy their Sunday brunch bagels. “Absolute Bagels!” No, “H & H Bagels!”
But the battle switched recently from crust quality to finances.
The owner of the self-proclaimed largest bagel producer in the world (though Lender’s and Dunkin’ Donuts likely beat the company by a long shot) has been lying on the books as well, to the tune of more than $330,000.
Helmer Toro, a co-founder and owner of iconic New York bagel bakery H & H Bagels, pleaded guilty May 27 to second-degree grand larceny for pocketing payroll taxes, mostly money he withheld from employees from 2003 to 2009 and never forked over to the state
The bagel shop, which is widely considered to make one of the quintessential New York bagels, has been mentioned in TV shows and on the big screen by everyone from Cosmo Kramer (Michael Richards) in “Seinfeld” to Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) in “Sex and the City.” The company, founded in 1972, ships its bagels overnight to anywhere in the country, and even to select locations abroad.
Toro, who took a plea bargain over a court date that could have resulted in 15 years in jail, will spend 50 weekends behind bars and will have to pay the state $500,000 in fines. He put up his company’s Manhattan bagel plant as collateral.
Manhattan’s district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., said, “Under no circumstances can employers gain in business by cheating their employees.”
Although H & H refused to disclose the number of bagels it produces, it has previously boasted the production of 80,000 bagels daily. And at the exorbitant price of $1.40 a pop (which would rake in $112,000 a day, by our calculation), it shouldn’t take Toro that long to earn some extra dough.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO