Mo opened his namesake establishment in 1995. The big, roomy, recently spruced-up 160-seat restaurant is more deli than bagel shop -- specifically a New York neighborhood "kosher-style" deli serving soups, salads, herring in cream sauce, Hebrew National hot dogs, and all manner of smoked fish and deli meats; matzoh brei, challah French toast, delectably sweet, vanilla-infused homemade blintzes, and thick wedges of noodle pudding made the old-fashioned way -- with a maraschino cherry inside; bakery items such as rugelach, challahs, babkas, and coffee cakes, complimentary squares of the last brought to the tables; egg creams and Dr. Brown's inimitable celery seed-flavored "Cel-Ray" soda; and, of course, nova or lox and a schmeer of cream cheese upon the wonderful bagels, hand-rolled by the talented Albert Fertil, a bagelmeister from ... Haiti!
Furthering the international flavor of Mo's is a fast, friendly waitstaff who hail from Ireland, Israel, seemingly all over the map -- there are as many accents in the air as varieties of bagels. Then again, there aren't that many varieties of bagels, but the important ones are spoken for -- poppy, sesame, salt, garlic, and so on. What I really mean to say is there are no blueberries or chocolate chips in the bread here, or any other such flavorings that serve as an affront not only to all native New Yorkers, but to venerators of bagels worldwide.
Mo has recently introduced a new line of cold cuts, the same brand served at New York's renowned Carnegie Deli. I'm not certain what they charge at Carnegie, but Mo's soft rye-bread sandwich piled high with juicy corned beef is $8.45 (about the same as half a corned beef sandwich at the newly opened Jerry's Famous Deli in South Beach). It is excellent. So is Mo's.