The yellow star of Brick Lane and ‘Britain’s first and best’ Beigel Shop has shut its doors on an apparent repossession order.
Globally renowned for its salt beef sandwiches and 24/7 opening times, bearded hipsters, shift workers and inebriated partygoers have been drawn to the Beigel Shop like moths to a lamp for decades.
The Beigel Shop has been serving queues of punters in its current iteration since 1987, but its history goes back as far as the mid-1800s.
“Founded in 1855, the Beigel Shop was the original and first beigel bakery to open on Brick Lane,” read the East End institution’s website, which also appears to have shut down.
The shop’s Twitter/X account also appears to be missing.
“Since then, this landmark institution has continued to provide the historic tastes and traditions of the Jewish East End, mixed with the flavours of an evolving multicultural community.”
Though social media users shared photos of a sign tacked to the front of the shop that said it “will be closed for a short period to conduct essential electrical maintenance”, the Guardian reported on Wednesday that landlords “had instructed his solicitors to take back possession of the site”.
“This is terrible, both history and excellent beigals victims of landlord's greed,” Twitter/X page JewishVoiceForLabour wrote.