Past Hot Shot Photo and Video Studio, and just before Pizza Park on Avenue U, is a most enticing aroma. It fills the senses and the mind with thoughts of dough rising to a peak, and the buttery batter of cookies waiting to be baked to perfection.
A red awning stands above the sidewalk, proclaiming the store underneath to be Nuccio’s Bakery. Day and night, heat emanates from within, indicating the tireless work of this Gravesend establishment.
“They’re always on,” Rosa Stemma, the manager says of the ovens that are constantly baking the breads, cakes, rolls, and pastries for which this pasticceria is known. Seven days a week, 24 hours a day, leavened dough is never safe from a heat of over 350 degrees.
This year marks the 21st anniversary of Nuccio’s bakery, as indicated by a white banner on front that was put up the previous year. After years of facing challenges including now gone competitors, like La Dorre, and a now sour economy, Nuccio’s continues to be a neighborhood powerhouse of Italian baked goods.
Stefano Stemma, Rosa’s father, opened this bakery in 1989, a few years after his first attempt on Avenue O. He already had the experience of operating a bakery, working from the age of 15, newly arrived from Palermo, Sicily. From his uncle’s bakery in Astoria, Queens, he learned the ins and out of the trade.
The building that is now occupied by Nuccio’s was also a bakery, focusing mainly on the sale of bread. When Mr. Stemma bought the place, he replaced the then-standard wood burning brick ovens with oil powered ones, and now natural gas. Just as the bakery has changed throughout the years to suit its purposes, so did the neighborhood.
“See there,” Mr. Stemma points across the street to Lady Moody’s Square, named in honor of the neighborhood’s founder. “That used to be a gas station.”
When Nuccio’s opened, it faced several competitors, from G & F and the aforementioned La Dorre. Today, only three bakeries are left on this part of Avenue U, Elegante, which recently celebrated its 25 anniversary, and Joe’s Bakery.
“I wouldn’t call them competitors,” Ms. Stemma says of her colleagues found further east. Each bakery occupies their own part of Avenue U, with Joe being found near Stillwell Avenue, Elegante at West 6 Street, and Nuccio’s is found closer to the F-train line. “We are the main bakeries,” she says of this triumvirate.
Nuccio’s adjusted its repertoire over the years, starting from the typical bread-baking. Mr. Stemma introduced cookies and cakes, and then items found in more contemporary places such as muffins and bagels.
The bakery also has a hand in the wholesale business. In fact, about half of Nuccio’s revenue comes from selling its goods around the New York area, especially in the various districts of Long Island.
Though the storefront seems be of average size, at least two and a half meters wide, for a store in the neighborhood, the vast variety of goods make the customer feel a bit cramped. From S-shaped cookies (buttery and crusted), to umberto biscotti, to cheese cakes, to prosciutto bread, Nuccio’s has just about any baked treat in stock.
People from all around the neighborhood, of different shapes and sizes, come for treats. Even those from a bit far away from the neighborhood come, including an employee of Frank’s Pizza on Avenue P, as well as a man who comes from another state.
Will French, 78, on his frequent visits to Brooklyn says, “I come here from Jersey just for the cookies.”
All pictures taken by the writer.
Nuccio’s Bakery is found on 261 Avenue U, Brooklyn, NY 11223
It’s a bit funny reading about a place one passes by all the time. I like your phrase about it being the “neighborhood powerhouse of Italian baked goods”– that’s the kind of expression that really packs a punch. The pictures are also great. It’d be kind of a crime to write about a bakery without some mouthwatering visuals to go along. It’s also good that you mentioned the other bakeries and their relationship with one another, because Gravesend is pretty serious about its bakeries and pizzerias. My one nitpicky suggestion is that the title might be a little too insider-y, unless the reader understands Italian. If they don’t understand the title, they wouldn’t understand what the article was about and then they might not read it. But the article itself is great.