Rumors circulated earlier this year that a prime, neon-lit slice of the old East Village at 174-176 First Avenue, which has been home to De Robertis Caffé Since 1904, would soon disappear because the parcel was on the market for $12 million. At the time, the De Robertis family dismissed the story and said their namesake bakery would remain open, but now our friends at Bedford + Bowery report the sad news that the place has been sold and the ovens will be turned off permanently on December 5.
The site says that various health concerns, the economy, and other factors brought the De Robertis family to a consensus to sell. This is dismal news for lovers of the place’s two kinds of cannoli, espresso, and sfogliatelle, but also for those who found the old shop, along with its mosaic-tiled floors and pressed tin ceilings. The bakery remained unchanged for so many decades that it served as a backdrop for scenes from movies like Malcolm X and Manhattan Murder Mystery. De Robertis Caffé also appeared in the first episode of Sex and the City.
Rumors circulated earlier this year that a prime, neon-lit slice of the old East Village at 174-176 First Avenue, which has been home to De Robertis Caffésince 1904, would soon disappear because the parcel was on the market for $12 million. At the time, the De Robertis family dismissed the story and said their namesake bakery would remain open, but now our friends at Bedford + Bowery report the sad news that the place has been sold and the ovens will be turned off permanently on December 5.
DE ROBERTIS PASTICCERIA at 176 First Ave between 11th & 12th Sts in what was once a heavily Italian enclave in the East Village. The family run business closed this past December after being open for 110 years. Amazing. The family is getting older, it’s increasingly tougher to compete and profit for the mom and pop places and real estate prices are making these decisions for tired families very tempting. Apparently that’s what happened here, can you blame the owner? Of course it’s sad because the old school Italian Pastry shop is becoming increasingly hard to find and this was one of the best in show for a variety of reasons. It’s age. That alone is a reason why its closing really takes a living piece of NYC’s Immigrant and Italian-American history away. We need these places, they are living museums. The look and aroma in the shop always took me back to “the old days”. Everything about it suddenly brought my mom and dad, my grandparents and other deceased family members back to life if only for a moment. For me, that’s priceless. You would step down into DeRobertis and get Punched in the face with the smell of what every Italian Pastry shop should smell like. I still don’t know if any other Italian or Italian-American bakery in NYC bakes the array of old traditional cookies.
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