H&H Bagels Backer Declares Bankruptcy

H&H Bagel store on Broadway and 80th Stree

Flickr/Scott Beale

By Tara Kyle

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

MANHATTAN — Bad news for bagel lovers — one of the companies supporting Upper West Side landmark H&H Bagels filed for bankruptcy Friday, according to the New York Post.

H&H affiliate Garden Operations Realty listed a debt totaling $5.1 million, including $3.4 million in IRS debt and back taxes owed to New York and New Jersey, the Post reported.

The bankruptcy papers indicate that the crisis and a related rent fight could force a shutdown of the bagel company's Seacaucus, N.J., baking facility, according to the Post.

H&H owner Helmer Toro wrote in the filing that all this, plus a lawsuit connected to the rent dispute, resulted in a loss of capital and made it difficult for his company to acquire new financing, the Post reported.

The bankruptcy case follows a turbulent few years for the acclaimed baker.

Last year, Toro was sentenced to 50 weekends in jail following a grand larceny guilty plea in a tax evasion case. And in 2009, the tax dispute forced Toro to temporarily close both H&H's W. 80th St. and Broadway and W. 46th St. and West Side Highway shops.

Writing in the bankruptcy filing, Toro attributed his most recent woes to country's financial crisis.

"The situation was the product of the poor economy affecting the company," Toro wrote, according to the Post. "Business has been increasing as the economy improves."

In happier times — H&H offered a special Jets-edition green bagel during the Super Bowl

DNAinfo/Gabriela Resto-Montero