Store: A mid-sized, rectangular shop. Sidewalk-facing windows and standing countertops take up one side with the kitchen/cashier set-up on the other. The menu signage is spartan: backlit boxes in what's either Helvetica font or comparable. It's approximately 11 AM and there's a photoshoot going on directly on the service counter to showcase the bagels, elaborately dressed and open-faced. De La Soul plays on the overhead audio. The bulk of the floor space is set-up as a vacant area for customers to wait for their order. There's no system for order flow management, and I have to ask several people before I'm sure it's my turn to order or not. I'm told it'll be about 10 minutes for my bagel by friendly staff. Waiting for my order, I need to move around uncomfortably several times to allow people to navigate around. There's not enough countertop room to secure a standing spot; one small wall where a rack of Apollo merchandise sits would be better served for counterspace. On the opposing small wall, a single drink fridge sits with mostly water and seltzer options. The bagel comes out much quicker than purported. I eat it outside the store and hear people as they leave say they refuse to deal with the hassle of navigating the store. A simple pick-a-number system would improve the situation dramatically. In aggregate, it comes off as a play to generate buzz at the expense of customer experience. 3.5

Bagel: A medium-sized bagel, served in a packing container rather than wrapped. Warm on receipt. Given the open-faced serving philosophy it makes sense that this would be the go-to packing solution. When served sandwich-style, it offers less topping and spread management possibilities, along with reduced eating surface area. Double-sided topping coverage of standard variety. Salt crystals not visible but present in taste. The bite is croissant-like in its compression, reducing down 90% of its size with each chew. Even the crunch itself exhibits a flakiness, all in a way that is very appealing. There's a wonderful char to all the toppings that serves as a flavor activation. Everything demonstrated about the experience takes a page from LA's Courage Bagels. In so many ways, this is the new 'meta' of bagels now arriving to NYC: airy, open-faced (i.e. photogenic) and pleasingly smoky. Some New Yorkers will be threatened by this as it's a departure from the dense, doughy bagels that have dominated for the past 25+ years. Not only is there space for this style, but it's an inevitable evolution of bagels as a vessel for more sophisticated topping combinations. A full elaboration of these coming changes can be found in my essay review of Courage Bagels, found at  https://mirror.xyz/highleyvarlet.eth . As for Apollo, this is an excellent standard bearer for this new era of bagel dialogue. 4.75

Cream Cheese: Served warm from bagel heat. Good amount and even coverage. Dairy neutral with good visual presence of scallion. Not much texture add, but good onion flavoring. The spread is doing everything it needs to plus a little bit more, but the star is undeniably the bagel. 4.25