New York Bagels’ owner vows to reopen after two explosions, but questions remain

An hour before dawn, the bakery in Overbrook Park was dark and quiet. Clear plastic tubs of cream cheese chilled in the refrigerator up front. In the back, thousands of bagels were proofing on metal racks, ready to bake.

Then New York Bagels exploded. Again.

The May 10 blast was the second explosion in nearly 10 weeks at the kosher bakery at 7555 Haverford Ave., which has served the community since 1964. The first, on March 3, knocked owner Rayyan Kayyali, 23, unconscious and forced the shop to close for repairs. An oven malfunction caused that initial explosion, according to a spokesperson for the Philadelphia Fire Department. Kayyali said a service technician he had hired told him that poppy or sesame seeds from the bagels may have blocked the igniter, which allowed gas to flow for nearly an hour before he switched on the oven, triggering the blast.

Now, more than a week after the second explosion, Kayyali is still trying to understand what happened — and what it will take to come back. Throwing out the bagels that had been intended for the bakery’s reopening was, he said, “literally like trashing a part of myself.”

A gas leak from the oven also caused the second explosion, the fire department spokesperson said, but it’s unclear how it occurred. The oven was in good working order, Kayyali said he was assured repeatedly by his technician.

Kayyali said investigators have visited the shop, and he said Tuesday that he expects answers in two to three weeks.

For now, the storefront, just behind a McDonald’s on City Avenue, remains boarded with plywood. Last Wednesday, Philadelphia’s Department of Licenses & Inspections deemed the property unsafe and ordered repairs within 30 days. If the conditions are not corrected, the city warned, it could move to vacate or demolish the property.

New York Bagels also faces a licensing issue. Its city food preparation and serving license expired March 27, three weeks after the first explosion, according to city records. The shop had passed a health inspection Feb. 20, but Kayyali acknowledges that he did not renew the license in time for the reopening.

“The explosion happened a few days [after the inspection], and it completely went out of my mind,” he said. The shop went out of compliance when Kayyali began preparing bagels, cream cheese, and salads before the May 10 explosion. L&I spokesperson Sharon Gallagher said the city issued a cease-operations order May 12.

The shop is in no condition to reopen soon.

“You can’t walk in there because the ceiling can fall on your head,” said Jeffrey Goldstone, who represents Herbert Yentis & Co., the shopping center’s owner. Goldstone said engineers have been hired to determine whether the blast compromised the plaza’s overall structure before repairs can begin.

The neighboring Citadel Credit Union — which celebrated its grand opening a day before the more recent explosion — sustained more damage than initially thought, Goldstone said, including cracked drywall along the adjoining wall and a shifted ceiling. The branch has been operating since last Tuesday, despite L&I also declaring the property unsafe.

PGW spokesperson Christina Clark said the utility had restored gas service after the March explosion. Before turning on service, she said, PGW inspects fuel lines and equipment; if an appliance fails inspection or is inoperable,PGW will leave the appliance off while restoring service if everything else is in working order.

Goldstone said PGW crews met with the property’s contractor about a week before the second explosion to perform a required pressure test — which checks for leaks — on New York Bagels’ gas line. PGW found no defects or leaks during this visit, Clark said.

A technician Kayyali hired also inspected the oven twice after the March 3 blast and assured him it was safe to operate, Kayyali said. “From what I saw, he went through everything, tested the wires, made sure everything was working, that the sensor worked,” said Kayyali.

On Saturday, May 9, after sundown, Rabbi Yonah Gross — who certifies the bakery’s kosher status as administrator of Keystone-K, the Community Kashrus of Greater Philadelphia — was helping Kayyali prepare for next morning’s grand reopening.

Kayyali said he opened the oven to be sure the gas line was clear. Then, he and Gross tested the oven around midnight and found that it was working, Kayyali said.

Gross programmed the oven to start at 3:50 a.m. To achieve a stricter kosher standard for the shop, Gross must fire up the oven, since Kayyali is not Jewish.

The goal: hot bagels, ready for customers at 8 a.m.

Security footage showed the explosion occurred about 20 minutes later, at 4:10 a.m., Kayyali said. As with the March 3 blast, the force blew out the front windows. This time, Kayyali said, the damage was more extensive. The new frame was destroyed. The shop’s steel rear door popped open.

Kayyali believes that a missed alarm may have saved lives.

Exhausted after days of prep, Kayyali had gone home for a few hours of sleep. He instructed his baker, Jerrell “G” Hite, to arrive at 4 a.m.

At 4:35, Hite texted to apologize, according to messages on Kayyali’s phone. He had overslept but was on his way.

At 4:48, another text: “Boss, I think a car drove into the shop and ran away.”

“I thought he was joking just to break the ice,” Kayyali said. “He probably thought I was mad that he was late. I told him, ‘G, come on. I don’t have time for this.’ And he FaceTimed me and my heart just dropped.”

“God saved us twice,” Kayyali said. There was no one in the shop at the time.

By 5:15, the fire department and PGW arrived. Customers, unaware of the explosion, began showing up shortly before 8 for their Sunday bagels. Kayyali spent the next several hours handing out cream cheese and accepting hugs from customers. He later donated the rest of the cream cheese to synagogues. The bagels, however, could not be salvaged.

The blasts have exacted a financial and emotional toll. Kayyali’s insurance claim from the first explosion is pending, though Goldstone estimated that, together, he and Kayyali spent $200,000 on repairs. To help fund them, Kayyali said he sold his souped-up 2024 Ford Bronco, his dream car. Now, he shares a 2018 Toyota RAV4 with his brother, a Drexel University student.

“I’m losing my mind, just staying home every day,” Kayyali said. “I just really want to work.” He’s thinking of DoorDashing to make some extra money.

On Friday afternoon, a contractor doing work at the shopping center stopped at New York Bagels and shook Kayyali’s hand.

“I don’t know how you’re alive,” he told him. “You’re like a cat. You have nine lives.”

“Cats are jealous of me,” Kayyali replied. “But let’s not jinx this.”

The explosion has also returned New York Bagels to a less charitable forum: Facebook.

After Kayyali bought the bagel shop in July 2024, he weathered a crisis of a different sort. That fall, previous longtime New York Bagels owner Nick Sammoudi — a Jordanian American of Palestinian descent once widely admired in the community — was accused of antisemitism after his Facebook posts were discovered. Although Kayyali had nothing to do with the posts, some members of the Jewish community demanded that Keystone-K revoke New York Bagels’ kosher certification.

That dispute appeared to have subsided. But after the explosions, Kayyali said, online commentary turned harsh again. Some commenters blamed him for the blast. Others suggested that it was an insurance scam. “A lot of people are blaming me, saying that I should have changed the oven, that I almost killed my staff,” Kayyali said.

He said the accusations are painful.

“We know we have a beautiful product that people love,” said Kayyali, who was born in Florida and raised in California and is Muslim. “Even though the boycott came from a certain group, from that group I’ve had people who supported me in every way possible. ... We’re all American. God bless America. We were just here literally selling bagels and cream cheese. That’s all we do.”

Replacing the oven could take months, but Kayyali insists that New York Bagels will return.

“We will be back,” he said. “I promise you.”