Bake Shop Closure Ends 122-Year Brooklyn Bread Legacy

BROOKLYN, NY — Caputo’s Bake Shop, a Brooklyn bakery that supplied bread to restaurants and shops for 122 years, closed abruptly this week, ending five generations of family ownership and disrupting a network of local food businesses.

The closure left restaurants across the borough searching for new suppliers after losing a staple source of daily bread.

“You want to hurt a neighborhood, close one of its favorite restaurants,” Eric Finkelstein of Court Street Grocers told Grub Street. “If you want to hobble a neighborhood, eliminate one of the pillar businesses that supply those restaurants.”

Court Street Grocers ordered about 6,000 loaves a week from Caputo’s across its three locations, Finkelstein said.

Finkelstein said the relationship with Caputo’s grew after Hurricane Sandy, when other suppliers could not deliver. What began with a single sandwich expanded into a major weekly order.

He said he received a text from Caputo’s on Monday notifying him that day’s delivery would be the last.

“We’ve been scrambling,” he said. He said the business temporarily shifted to bread from a Long Island distributor sourcing from a Yonkers bakery. “Not near as good. It looks the same.”

James Caputo, 55, the fifth-generation owner, said the decision followed years of continuous operation.

“I’ve been doing this for the past 25 years,” he said. “I was married to the business. If I didn’t do it this way, make a decision this way, I would have been there until I died — it was time.”

Local businesses said the bakery played a central role in their operations. Joe Brancaccio, owner of Brancaccio’s Food Shop in Windsor Terrace, said he had used Caputo’s bread for 16 years.

Other long-standing customers included Marco Polo, a Carroll Gardens restaurant that used Caputo’s bread for two decades, as well as the former Red Hook bar Fort Defiance and Cobble Hill café Tekoá.

Caputo’s was founded in 1904 on Court Street, across from its later location in a building constructed by James Caputo’s grandfather about 60 years ago. The bakery operated with family living quarters above the shop, which were later converted for baking operations as production expanded.

Many recipes dated back several generations, including olive bread and long, thin loaves known as “Sinatras,” a likely family creation. Baking began each evening at 7 p.m. and continued into the early afternoon the next day.