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\n New York subscribers got exclusive early access to this story in\u00a0Eating New York, a newsletter featuring food news and advice straight from our critics\u2019 mouths. Sign up here<\/a> to get it in your inbox.\n <\/p>\n \n The Carroll Gardens bakery, which has been in operation for more than a century, suddenly closed earlier this week. If you want to hurt a neighborhood, close one of its favorite restaurants. If you want to hobble a neighborhood, eliminate one of the pillar businesses that supply those restaurants. Caputo\u2019s Bake Shop, which has provided thousands of Brooklynites and dozens of Brooklyn restaurants and shops with their daily bread,\u00a0abruptly closed this week<\/a>\u00a0after 122 years and five generations of family ownership.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s pretty awful,\u201d says Eric Finkelstein of\u00a0Court Street Grocers<\/a>. \u201cMost of our most popular sandwiches were on that bread.\u201d That included the Vegitalian, which the\u00a0New Yorker\u2019s Helen Rosner recently\u00a0declared<\/a>\u00a0\u201cmaybe my favorite sandwich, period.\u201d (\u201cThere\u2019s nothing like a worn-in Italian bakery, and Caputo was, for me, the epitome,\u201d Rosner tells me.)<\/p>\n Across its three locations, Court Street Grocers ordered roughly 6,000 Caputo\u2019s loaves of various kinds each week, but that wasn\u2019t always the case: When the shop opened, it bought no bread from Caputo\u2019s. After Hurricane Sandy, when none of the bakeries they were using could deliver, they turned to Caputo\u2019s. It started with one sandwich, and the number only grew over the years.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was something about it,\u201d Finkelstein says. \u201cThey were able to get a really thin crust. It wasn\u2019t airy, but light, the crumb. We\u2019ve tried all the bread over the years, and we never found anything we liked as much anywhere in the city.\u201d<\/p>\n Finkelstein got a text from Caputo on Monday; that day\u2019s delivery would be the last.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been scrambling,\u201d since then, he says. A bread distributor on Long Island was able to get them bread from a small bakery in Yonkers that was \u201cnot near as good. It looks the same.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been doing this for the past 25 years,\u201d says James Caputo, the 55-year-old fifth-generation steward of the bakery. \u201cI was married to the business. If I didn\u2019t do it this way, make a decision this way, I would have been there until I died \u2014 it was time.\u201d He adds, \u201cIf I did a slow gradual phaseout, I know I\u2019d find a way to keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n The bakery had strong connections, both past and present, with many businesses in the area.\u00a0Joe Brancaccio, owner of\u00a0Brancaccio\u2019s Food Shop<\/a>\u00a0in Windsor Terrace, had been using Caputo bread for his sandwiches for 16 years. \u201cI live in Cobble Hill,\u201d he says. \u201cI like doing business with friends. I use them because it\u2019s honest to what I do in my shop. That\u2019s the best way I can think of to put it.\u201d<\/p>\n Marco Polo<\/a>, one of the last red-sauce joints in the once heavily Italian Carroll Gardens, bought bread from Caputo\u2019s for 20 years.<\/p>\n When the bar Fort Defiance operated in Red Hook, it used a Caputo\u2019s seeded round loaf for its muffaletta sandwich, and Alex Raij and Eder Montero\u2019s Cobble Hill caf\u00e9\u00a0Teko\u00e1 served Caputo\u2019s bread while it was open.<\/p>\n \u201cMy twin daughters got both of their birthday cakes from Caputo\u2019s for the last 13 years,\u201d says Mike Vacheresse of\u00a0Travel Bar<\/a>\u00a0on Court Street. \u201cWe used to buy all of our cheese from Stinky on Smith Street and all our bread from Caputo\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe used their bread at\u00a0Brooklyn Social<\/a>\u00a0for 22 years,\u201d says Matt Dawon, an owner of that long-standing bar on Smith Street. \u201cWe wanted to honor the neighborhood and the Italian American history and use local purveyors.\u201d<\/p>\n Georgia Fulton, the new owner of\u00a0Sam\u2019s pizzeria<\/a>\u00a0on Court Street,\u00a0who plans to reopen this summer<\/a>, had intended to continue Sam\u2019s long-standing relationship with Caputo\u2019s. Now she\u2019s not sure where she\u2019ll get her bread \u2014 possibly\u00a0Mazzola Bakery<\/a>, which is on the corner of Henry and Union Streets and is the last old Italian bakery in a neighborhood that used to support several. Marco Polo will be buying from Mazzola from now on. Brancaccio was already using Mazzola for some of his sandwiches.<\/p>\n Caputo\u2019s was founded on Court Street in 1904, across the street from its current location, a two-story building that was built from the ground up by James\u2019s grandfather about 60 years ago. James and his parents lived on the second floor. Over time, as the bakery needed more space, the second floor was converted to handle prep work.<\/p>\n Many of the recipes go back to James\u2019s great-great-grandfather. Varieties of bread were fewer in early years, but new items like French baguettes were added over time. Caputo\u2019s was particularly known for its olive bread and the long, thin loaves known as \u201cSinatras,\u201d which may be a coinage of the bakery\u2019s.<\/p>\n Baking began at Caputo every evening at 7 p.m. and didn\u2019t stop until 1 p.m. the next day. As a result, James says he was never able to \u201cdisconnect\u201d from the business, and that the phone would ring a couple times every night without fail. In the end, he decided against selling the business. \u201cIt entered my mind,\u201d he says, \u201cbut it\u2019s always been my family who ran the business. It wouldn\u2019t be the same. It was my family who started this, and it was going to be my family who ended it.\u201d<\/p>\n Caputo\u2019s received some press and praise over the years, but more than that, it was a steady, reliable business, the owners keeping their heads down and focusing on the work. I suggested to Finkelstein that perhaps locals in brownstone Brooklyn were spoiled by Caputo\u2019s and didn\u2019t know how good they had it until the bakery closed. He disagrees. \u201cToday is proving that everyone did know it,\u201d Finkelstein says.<\/p>\n Sign up for Eating New York<\/p>\n Weekly food news, straight from our critics\u2019 mouths and just for subscribers.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n
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