Gideon’s Bakery

My family has been shopping here for over 60 years. It is a required stop on any trip that I make to New York City. Their rye bread is the best there is.

Everything I’ve tried with with chocolate has been great! Glad it’s Kosher. The coffee is OK, I’d suggest hitting this place up for baked goods, and then heading around the corner to get coffee from the shop on Pinehurst.

What a great place to get the best rye bread in the world. However, I wish the last kosher bakery in the area would play some Jewish music every now and then. Whenever I walk in it’s the same bachata, etc. that you’re bombarded with everywhere else in the neighborhood.

So good. And not expensive! And kosher! Got a chocolate horn, an apple strudel, and a black and white cookie for $ 5.50. Had to resist the urge to eat them all in one sitting. I look forward to trying everything else. A little bit of seating is available.

Grew up on Gideon’s as a treat on my way to the Cloisters with Abuelita. So happy they are still in business in this rapidity changing area — a true New York classic. Gideon’s has been around and survived the closure of many Kosher bakeries in the area and for that history alone, it’s a must try.
Cookies are the best — a flaky, buttery quality that can’t be beat. Pair it with a small coffee for no more than $ 1.50 and walk to the Cloisters. You won’t be sorry!

The place is filthy. Yesterday, February 2, 2014, I witnessed pigeons, yes, pigeons, having found a way inside from behind their usual coop behind the exterior façade, above the dropped-​ceiling panels where they were tramping around and cooing right over the heads of customers EATING! Their feathers and some sort of grey-​white gritty material was falling out of the gaps in the ceiling grid onto or into my food and into my coffee and the food of other customers as well. F-​I-​L-​T-​H-​Y1 Treyf! Go ahead, suckers– go in and LOOK UP! When I told the counterperson the situation, she said, «Yeah, I know», so it’s been going on for a while and the LARGE amount of feathers visible at the edges of the ceiling panels, just needing the slightest loft to come down, tell the same story. The birds have been there awhile!
The people who write here that their ‘socks were knocked off” had better find an honest haberdasher or baker. Wow, bread sliced right in front of the customer! What an ethnic experience… for some! Enjoy your grey-​white gritty material– that’s «bird shit», on your bialy, baked in Jersey. The baked goods are lousy, cheap and stale.

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One of the best parts of sitting in a bakery is the smell of freshly baked goods. This bakery doesn’t have that aroma. How about baking on premises?

I only really make reviews if the place is REALLY good or REALLY bad. This place really knocked the socks off me. My boyfriend and I recently moved to the Washington Heights area from upstate (though we’re no stranger to the city, previously being only 60 miles north of it), and we were looking for a good bakery for those times when I didn’t feel like baking and I just wanted something delicious, sweet and authentic. Gideon’s really exceeded my expectations in quality, price and service.
I didn’t catch the man’s name that helped us, but he was a lovely elderly man, who was also likely the owner. We chatted for a little bit, and he was incredibly pleasant and the service was quick. I got a chocolate pretzel (SO good!), and my boyfriend got a bagel with creamcheese and and an apple pastry (both delicious and huge) and the total ended up being $ 5.25 for all three really good sized items. You really can’t beat that.
I read other reviews starting that it’s a small place with not much seating. Honestly, it’s to be expected, and if you want to sit down, and it’s a nice day, there’s Tryon Park 2 blocks away with amazing views of the Hudson, and plenty of benches and grassy spots to sit.
I wanted a bakery that provided delicious, home made baked goods, and I got it. I’m incredibly pleased!

Great eggy challah! And a babka-​like cinnamon loaf. Big selection of pastries and cookies, so I’ll have to come back to try more.

After moving to New York, I began searching for a staple bakery (or two) to visit to fulfill my bread and sweet tooth needs, and I’m sorry to say that Gideon’s fills neither. That isn’t to say that the bread isn’t plentiful and convenient. It is. But what it isn’t is weekend-​fresh and taste-​maintainable.
The slice of cake I bought one visit was probably sitting in the case for a few days. I guess this is to be expected in a location that doesn’t lend itself to too much traffic, especially for cake. But I expected more than a chewy chocolate ganache on top and dry cake inside. A loaf of rye bread probably would have tasted good, if it hadn’t picked up the flavors of everything else in the bakery. The ample amount of sweets in the place is supersaturated in the other baked goods, rendering everything slightly sweet and sickly. I purchased bagels a few times, and they were acceptable, although not my favorite (I prefer them to be chewier).
If you’re in a need for bread or sweets in the neighborhood, then this is an acceptable place to visit. I wouldn’t go out of my way to taste these goods, though.
(SIDE NOTE: Pretty much every individual purchase is by weight, from the cake to bread. I didn’t realize at first. Interesting way to charge, and renders everything fairly cheap.)

Great baked goods — cookies, hamentashen, bagels, challah (especially good!)
There’s not a lot of options for take-​away breakfast (few cream cheese options, no eggs or cheese) but what they make they make well.

Quick. We were looking for bagels, and on that particular day, well, let’s just say this isn’t a bagel shop…

Excellent Hungarian Rye and Raisin Pumpernickel. Good Hamentashen (little apricot, rasberry, or poppy seed triangular pastrys). Strictly Kosher. Best bakery in the Heights by far.

bought two amazing things here yesterday after a great brunch next door… raspberry horn and marzipan slice… wowee wow wow… the marzipan slice is pure marzipan with layers of nutty cake and real chocolate… its decadent and delicious. I had a few bites yesterday and a few more today… cant wait to try the munn hamentashen and black and white cookie! nice service very pleasant and cozy… the anti — Starbucks…

The only bakery in town. The style and taste is geriatric — for very elderly (80, 90 year old), white Jewish folks and their fellow white-​processed flour and Wonder Bread lovers. The worst of American style baking can be found here.
The pastries are pretty inedible. Sickly sweet with no tonality.
The only good things to eat are the Challah bread — shiny, brown, junky but it’s supposed to be. And the black and white cookies.
Everything else is comparable to Entenmann’s. Bagels taste like Lender’s, defrosted.
Coffee is the Sanka glass jar on burner type. What a throwback to a thankfully bygone era. I don’t understand why they don’t invest in a Nespresso machine. It’s because they don’t want to be better.

Best upper Manhattan Kosher bakery.
Inexpensive freshly baked goods available daily, except during the Sabbath.
Try the hamentashen, the chocolate babka and a variety of cookies (priced by weight).

Okay kosher fare, low prices compared to downtown. Small coffee counter and a few seats.

Real bagels, not the dreaded bread bagel. Fresh baked bread sliced right before your eyes. The pumpernickel was perfect as was the rye. I was in business with my turkey sand which (turkey supplied else where) thanks to Gideon’s. Also, the coffee is good. Best bakery in the Washington Height’s Inwood area.

What a place for coffee and bagels. Really cheap bakery type items. Their black and white cookies kick ass, and we always get a box of those rainbow cookies for big family dinners.
The bagels run out quickly, especially on the weekends and after holidays. Gideons doesn’t have an assortment of cream cheeses, if you want a smear, they take your bagel to the back room and throw a little bit of cream cheese on it.
I guess this place isn’t for the pretentious, yuppie crowd. More for people that want a old school New York experience.