BY TEQUILA MINSKY | There were a lot of long faces and heartfelt hugs at Pasticceria Bruno / Bakery & Café last Sunday, as community members, some who had been customers for as long as the shop has been open, made their final orders. Most said their long goodbyes while drinking cappuccino with a pastry.
Sunday was the last day for the LaGuardia Place shop, which has served up its baked goodies and Italian coffee drinks — and Italian breads, too — for 41 years.
The place was buzzing.
Clubhouse, hangout, office and home away from home were just a few of the functions served by this centrally located neighborhood staple. Villagers and Soho residents will have to go elsewhere for their tarts, mousses, sfogliatella, biscotti cookie assortments and special order cakes.
The “To our loyal customers” notice on the front window read, in part: “We would like to thank our landlord for the opportunity to make this work, but since September 11, 2001, it’s been a continuing struggle to stay in business. Times have changed in our business and we cannot financially stay. New York City and some of their agencies make it impossible to survive.”
While some of Sunday’s customers had just found the place for the first time, it was pretty much filled with neighbors and regulars.
Over a croissant and tea, Soho resident Roma Mostel — a cousin of Zero Mostel — and Villager Roberta Pugh, over cappuccinos and hamantaschen, were having a final Bruno’s meet-up. They said it was a de facto community center, and that everybody met each other there.
“This is a major change in the neighborhood,” Mostel said.
Pugh mentioned how she regularly bought Bruno’s ciabatta or semolina breads .
As a neighbor picked up a chocolate birthday cake order for her 18-year-old son, she nostalgically reflected, “Bruno’s made our wedding cake”
Community gardeners were huddling over their final coffees.
“We have our board meetings here,” said Sara Jones of LaGuardia Corner Gardens — just across LaGuardia St. Jones and Barbara Cahn, the beekeepers of the garden’s newly established breakaway hive — “they squatted in a cabinet in the garden” — were later joined by other garden members for a last farewell.
“We come here in the summer to cool off and in the winter to warm up,” Jones said.
On Sunday afternoon, N.Y.U. film professor Bob Stam, who lives in Silver Towers, was sitting outside the place. He is such a regular that his name should have been engraved on one of the seats. It’s been his “second home,” he said, since he moved from Little Italy, 29 years ago.
From his outside perch, Stam drinks iced coffee summer and winter.
“I’ve met so many people sitting out here,” he reminisced, while eating a mini lemon tart with a fellow professor. He recounted the different phases of wait staff he’s seen.
“There were the Ethiopians, and later, the Brazilians.”
Meanwhile, during a stop on a “chocolate walking tour” of the Village, tourists sampled Bruno’s signature mini cannolis before moving on.
Nestled in the far corner were musicology professors and neighbors David Cannata and Rena Mueller, who lunch there every weekend. Cannata finished off his last Bruno’s meal with a cream cannoli.
“People don’t understand,” he said. “To be called the ‘Cannoli King’ in a ‘Throwdown! with Bobby Flay’ is something simply extraordinary.” He elaborated that cannoli is “the pastry for Sicilians — it’s in their DNA.”
Mueller’s last dessert was a Ferrero Rocher, chocolate cream with nuts.
“I’m sad, despondent,” she said. “We’ve been eating here since 1972.”
Mueller said she also remembers the family matriarch, Bruno’s mother.
As Sunday’s “wake” continued, regulars drifted in and out, hugging wait staff and owners alike.
Owner Pina Settepani was careful to say that it wasn’t about the landlord. It was just hard to make it as a small business in Manhattan, she explained. She mentioned, in particular, Health Department fines for “any little thing” that really killed them, along with taxes and insurance. “We don’t want to leave,” she said. “We just can’t afford to stay.”
Pasticceria Bruno still has two other locations on Staten Island, where the Settepanis live.
Their children are also in the family business. Salvatore is the executive pastry chef and owner of one of the Staten Island locations. Youngest brother Joseph has been baking mouthwatering, calorie-loading pastries on LaGuardia St. for one year; he studied pastry and baking arts at Culinary Institute of America. Joseph had planned to take over the Village store, but remained upbeat.
“In four or five years, I’ll be back in Manhattan,” he said.
The whole family gathered at the bakery during its final hours. The other grown children, while posing for a last photo, echoed their brother’s prediction: “We’ll be back!”
