GOURMET GARAGE DRIVES BAGELS WITH PRICE SIGNS

ROSEANNE HARPER

NEW YORK -- At a new location here, upscale food retailer Gourmet Garage has posted its bagel and coffee prices for the whole Upper West Side neighborhood to see.

A large sign in the front window of the new store says, "Bagels, 33 cents; coffee, 65 cents," giving the two compatible products prominent status in a store brimming with fresh foods, including abundant prepared foods.

"We definitely have the least expensive bagel on the block and also the best, and our morning business is brisk," said store manager Rob Prusak.

Prusak also said it was not possible to gauge the sign's effect on sales, because it has been in the window since the store opened last month, and there is nothing against which to compare current sales.

"Those are our everyday prices; it's not a special," he explained.

The sign is very visible to people on their way to the subway station at 96th St. and Broadway, one block south of Gourmet Garage. Other retailers' bagel prices in the immediate area range from 50 cents to 75 cents each, Prusak said.

Not surprisingly for a town that treasures the bagel tradition, the best-selling variety at Gourmet Garage is plain and the runner-up is the "everything" bagel. Other favorites are poppy seed and sesame seed, Prusak said. The other four varieties offered are pumpernickel, cinnamon raisin, onion and marble.

The bagels are brought in fresh every morning from a New York bagel bakery Prusak declined to name.

Gourmet Garage, a combination specialty store and grocery store, has a second location in Manhattan's Soho area.