Old City Bakery Brings Back Memories for Noletti

As far back as he can remember, Serafino Nolletti spent time at the family’s bakery located beside the old Capitol Theater on Stratton Street in Logan.

If you walk into the old building, it’s like taking a trip back in time. The old display cases are still there. The antiquated metal cash register, that rang up many a loaf of bread, pastry, or a dozen cookies – now sits idle on the top of the counter.

In the back, the old original brick oven, patented in 1888, still sits in the back of the kitchen. The old oven, which the elders purchased was used in 1925, originally used wood to fire up the oven. But, it was later converted over to natural gas by Grandpa Nolletti.
 
Serafino’s grandfather, Joseph Nolletti, an Italian immigrant, started the City Bakery in 1925. Like many others, he had migrated into the Logan area to get work in the coal mines. He saved his money and eventually started the popular bakeshop.
 
Joseph, who passed away in 1961, handed the family business over to Se

rafino’s dad, Pasquale “Patsy” Nolletti, who ran the business until 1989, until “Fino” took over the reigns in 1989.
 
“When I was in the 9th grade, I started getting up at 3 a.m. and going in to the bakery with dad,” Serafino said. “I would work for about three hours, go home and cleanup, and then go to school. Then after school, I came back to the bakery to help out.”
 
That didn’t leave much time for a social life for the teenage. The business became as much a part of his existence, as it did for his ancestors.
Nolletti, who now serves as the Mayor of Logan, learned the

family trade. He kept the bakery open until 2005, when he had some health problems, and had to take some time off. He had planned to open back up, but decided against it.
 
“Our biggest seller was breads,” Sarafino recalls. “Our bakery supplied all the local restaurants with buns. The Smokehouse restaurant used to order 100 loaves of French bread per day.”
 
Nolletti recollects about that restaurant, and others like the Coney Island and the Logan Bowling Center. He said at one time, like most small towns that were thriving in the region, there were over 20 restaurants in Logan.  
Like many towns, Logan had its own soda pop bottling plant, fresh butcher shop, a place to buy vegetables and fruit. But the bakery shops were arguably the most popular.
 
After all, everybody wants fresh bread, no matter what meal they are eating. Throw in tasty treats like cookies, cakes and doughnuts, no doubt the aroma that permeated the air in downtown Logan brought in many a customer.
The Nolletti family also had its own delivery truck. An old red Ford wagon. Serafino still has a wooden model of the vehicle that someone  made for his father.
 
The old wooden paddles used to removed hot pans from the old oven are still in the kitchen. You can almost picture the elder Nolletti pulling out a few loaves of bread, sitting them on one of  the wooden tables he built, to cool.
The large antique mixers, both a hand-cranked device and a 1950’s electric mixer, sit idle. Three generations used those mixers to create dough for all of the baked goods.
 
A large doughnut fryer also sits against one wall, where the Nolletti’s made dozens of the fresh, glazed pastry. 
Serafino proudly showed the long handmade “bread boxes” that were used to place the loaves of bread, waiting for the yeast to rise, and then placed in the oven. 
 
“He was talented,” Serafino said of his grandpa. “He even made the screen door at the front of the building.’ About anything that is wooden in the old bakery, his grandfather made.
 
The Italian bakers made many a birthday cake for local residents. Serafino’s mother Betty Shaheen Nolletti was the cake decorator. Her family had also journeyed into Logan County. The Shaheen owned a General Merchandise store at Omar. Her father had came into the area with a wagon, peddling his goods, and eventually started the store in the local coal camp.
 
Serafino’s mother passed away in 2003, his dad died in 2005, and soon after that he closed up the shop. He intended to go back in after his health problems, but then decided to retire from the bakery.
 
Like most small businesses this day and age, it became increasingly harder to compete with the mega-marts, who also sell baked goods. Though they aren’t as fresh and baked daily like the City Bakery did, but with today’s lifestyles, it’s more difficult for a small business to make it.
 
“Fino” as most of his friends call him, spends most of his time at City Hall, serving as the Mayor of Logan. Before that he was elected as a councilman in 1999, but was appointed mayor after the death of former mayor Claude “Big Daddy” Ellis.
 
The wall behind the main counter of the store is lined with old black and white photos from the past. His grandpa, parents and others adorn the walls in the old frames. Pictures of days gone by.
 
“There are a lot of good memories here,” Serafino said, while giving the guided tour of the old bakery. “We bonded here – we were a close family.”
You  can tell he gets sentimental and nostalgic as he talks about those years he spent as a youngster, learning the business and eventually taking over the shop for his parents in 1989.
 
That was 80 years the Nolletti family supplied Logan with fresh baked goods. And those fond memories will never fade away for Serafino Nolletti.