Frank Martusciello – his surname is synonymous with excellent Italian bread in Rochester – has moved his bakery roughly three miles away to 475 Spencerport Road in Gates.
Casa Saratoga opened in its new location on July 13, and it didn’t take long for his customers to find him.
Peter Post of Penfield was among a steady stream of customers on opening morning. “This is the best bread in the city,” Post said. He stopped in to buy seven hard crust loaves of Italian bread; he planned to make three stops to deliver them to people who couldn’t stop in that day. He said when heads to Arizona in the wintertime, and his first stop after getting off the plane is the bakery before he heads home.
Curiously, the new bakery is right next door to Savastano’s Bakery and Pizzeria, another longtime Italian establishment.
Martusciello explained that he sold his former building on Lyell Avenue in Gates, and part of the purchase agreement was that the bakery would leave the premises. He scrambled to find an appropriate space and the long-ago Pizza Hut building was the only one he could find that fit his needs.
He said he regretted landing so close to a competitor, but pointed out that there are significant differences between the two establishments. For one, Savastano’s serves a variety of subs as well as pizzas ranging from minis to party size.
Martusciello, age 71, is a one-man operation (with occasional help from family members).
“I’m going to try to stick to the basics,” he said. “My time is limited. I can only do so much.”
Martusciello is offering various Italian rolls and breads, cookies, brownies, cannoli, refrigerated dough and desserts. He makes pizzas in one size, baked in 9-inch pie plates; calzones are made in the same pans.
Some customers have already recognized the advantages of having the two places side-by-side. One customer purchased his bread from Casa Saratoga on Monday, then headed to Savastano’s for one of their popular mini pizzas (he was disappointed to find that Savastano’s is closed on Mondays).
Frank’s parents, Gaetano and Maria Martusciello, started baking and selling breads out of their home on Saratoga Avenue in the late 1950s. In the 1960s, students at nearby Thomas Jefferson High School would buy their 9-inch pizzas for lunch.
Eventually Frank took over the business and grew it dramatically, adding new products and a wholesale operation.
In 1996 he moved the business to a former hardware store at 2280 Lyell Ave. in Gates. He changed the name to Casa Saratoga, which paid tribute to the original location, but decades later, many still call it Martusciello’s.
He closed the bakery in 2022, citing skyrocketing ingredient prices, problems finding staffing and difficulty getting equipment repaired. He gutted the building, divided up the space, purchased equipment geared toward baking at a smaller scale, and reopened three years later.
He’s calling the reopening in Gates his second encore. “I guess you could say Old Blue Eyes is back for a second time,” he said with a laugh.
“We’re thankful for all our customers, our Facebook friends, our competitors and all the people who have helped us,” he said.
He remains hopeful that he can find a buyer for the bakery to carry on his family’s legacy. “At my age, I can’t do this forever,” he said.
Casa Saratoga is open 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday to Saturday and is closed Sunday. It is a retail shop only and does not wholesale its products.
Tracy Schuhmacher has been food and drink reporter for the past 11 years. Email news to tracys@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Frank Martusciello moves his Italian bakery to new spot in Gates
Reporting by Tracy Schuhmacher, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle / Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Tracy Schuhmacher, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle | USA TODAY Network
