There's a new name above the door, a fresh color on the walls and new items on the menu such as Philly Flava sandwiches and Caramel Cloud Macchiatos that are most definitely from 2026.
But the heart of Anything Bagel – its location, its legacy and its closely guarded recipes – still belongs to Block's.
A new owner with some new ideas has taken over the restaurant at 6115 McNaughten Center that was the last home of Block's Bagels. The Columbus staple closed in 2025 after the death of co-founder Harold Block.
TJ Burkheart knows the old place well. As a child in Columbus, his mother would take him to Block's after shopping trips to a nearby Schottenstein's
store on the Far East Side. He learned later that the crispy but chewy, soft but dense bagels he grew up on were a New York classic recreated in Columbus because Harold Block and his wife, Audrey, missed that taste of their hometown.
"If the Blocks weren't here, I wouldn't have a legacy to build our brand on," said Burkheart, whose 30 years in restaurants include time as a food truck owner and Steak 'n Shake franchisee. "You can't erase what was here to build something new. You need to honor that legacy and do it justice."
Burkheart bought the former Block's operation from Cincinnati-based Marx Bagels, which purchased the restaurant from Harold Block's family two weeks after they closed up shop in March 2025. At the time, Marx said its bagel recipes were the same because its founder had once worked for the Blocks.
Derek Hickey, who has been the head baker for all three owners, said the recipes weren't exactly the same. Both are a secret, he said, but variations in ingredients, amounts, techniques and times change flavors and textures slightly. Anything Bagel is using the last recipes used at Block's, and not just for bagels, but for its flavored schmears and chicken and tuna salad as well.
Hickey knows Block's well. He started baking at the restaurant in 2007 and was the third generation of his family to work for the Block family. His father was the head baker who last tweaked Harold Block's original bagel recipe, and his mother worked the line there. As a kindergartner, he said, the school bus would drop him off at the back of Block's, near the corner of McNaughten Road and East Main Street.
"That was the '90s," he said. "You could make a deal with the bus driver and say, 'Hey, I'm gonna give you a dozen blueberry bagels. Drop my son off here instead of down the road.'"
Like Burkheart, Hickey sees himself as a guardian of the Block's legacy. But he's also happy to be able to flex his creative muscles on new bagel flavors. As much as customers like traditional bagels, he said, they also want the option of something new and different.
And the market is getting competitive. Anything Bagel opened in August, the same month Toledo-based Barry Bagels opened its fourth central Ohio shop in the University District. In July, three new bagel places – Bagels & Co. in the University District, Bagels & Jam Co. in Hilliard and Einstein Bros. Bagels on the Northeast Side – opened for business.
"I feel like if you have a bagel shop or any bakery or anything with a display case, you should definitely stay with the trends because it does bring in a crowd," Hickey said.
For fall, Anything Bagel has added a Cinna-Thing Crunch Bagel and is having customers vote for their favorite between a pumpkin spice and sweet potato schmear.
A portion from those sales is earmarked as a donation to the Child Development Council of Franklin County's Head Start program, part of a charitable program Burkheart has started called Bake It Forward.
Although the new owner found success as a restaurant franchisee, he had a different experience as the owner of a breakfast-inspired food truck called Morning Ritual.
"I started it right at the wrong time, in 2019," he said of its pre-pandemic beginning. "Our first season was 2019, and when we went to go reopen in 2020, the rest is kind of history."
That experience, though, helped ignite the entrepreneurial flame for someone whose first restaurant job was toasting English muffins on the breakfast shift at McDonald's. Anything Bagel's name might evoke thoughts of the ubiquitous everything bagel, but it's deeper than that for Burkheart.
"Anything Bagel comes from a belief that I'll always carry with me, that anything is possible," he said. "You've just got to keep being in there. Keep working at it. Keep not letting the dream die."
Follow Dispatch dining reporter Bob Vitale on Instagram at @dispatchdining. You can reach him directly at rvitale@dispatch.com.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Anything Bagel carries on Block's legacy while charting its own course
