The kettle-boiled bagel shop at Gilman Street is opening a second storefront at 1941 University Ave. on August 17, moving into a downtown corridor where the city and the business improvement district disagree by 18 percentage points on how many storefronts are actually empty.

Berkeley Bagels is set to open a second location at 1941 University Ave. in downtown Berkeley — at the corner of Bonita Avenue — on August 17, according to a report by Berkeleyside's Calliope Arkilic published July 23. The new space occupies the former Dessert N Spice cupcake shop. It will sell the same kettle-boiled, New York-style bagels as the flagship Gilman Street location; all bagels for both stores will continue to be baked at the Westbrae facility and transported to University Avenue.

The business has operated out of its Westbrae address since 1974 — under varying names, including Boogie Woogie Bagel Boys — using the same recipe and the same equipment, per the Berkeleyside report. Manager Alex Suon told Berkeleyside the expansion was driven by customer demand from the UC Berkeley community and the University Avenue neighborhood.

The City of Berkeley's Office of Economic Development reported ground-floor commercial vacancy in downtown at 9.68% as of Q4 2025, down from 15.66% in 2021. The Downtown Berkeley Association puts the effective rate at up to 28%, counting spaces tied to stalled development projects that are technically off-market. Kidder Mathews Research Group put the broader East Bay retail market at 5.7% vacancy in Q2 2026 — a figure that doesn't map cleanly onto downtown Berkeley specifically.

No business permit or health department filing for 1941 University Ave. has been independently located; the August 17 opening date rests on the Berkeleyside report.