Fritz Bakery's Elbow Grease Leads To Need For Elbow Room In Bucks

Editor's Note —This is a monthly series on Bucks County's legacy businesses.

BUCKS COUNTY, PA —They are the businesses that have been around Bucks County forever.

These are the everyday staples in communities from Dublin to Yardley, Doylestown to Levittown, and every town in between.

We often take these businesses for granted, whether they are a bakery, dry cleaner, banker, eatery, bar and grill, coffee house, or convenience store.

Every month, Patch Staff Writers Dino Ciliberti and Jeff Werner will feature these legacy businesses that have been around the block for 10 years or more and have become known commodities in our communities.

We kick off the series with the Fritz Bakery.

The longtime bakery with locations in Langhorne and Bensalem puts in the elbow grease each day. And now they need a little more elbow room.

The bakery put itself on the map in 1974, offering its popular sticky buns and a host of sweet treats from brownies, cookies and cupcakes, cheesecakes, Danish, pies, cinnamon rolls, and other goodies.

Co-owner Kim Bartholomai granted Patch a rare interview recently, discussing the past and the future of this longtime establishment that has made its name in Lower Bucks County, being on the tip of everyone's tastebuds.

"We've been around almost 30 years," she said of the bakeries that are located near the Neshaminy Mall and Oxford Valley Mall and employs 54 people. "But we're going to expand. We've run out of room."

The move of its Bensalem operation is a short one: just down the corner.

Bartholomai said the bakery is taking over the space at the former St. Jude Religious Store, which closed after 60 years last August at its location at 4201 Neshaminy Blvd. in Neshaminy Square.

That legacy business closed because its owner was retiring. Bartholomai is grateful for the space.

"The landlord came to us and said 'How about you go there,'" she said.

She added that the landlord has already demolished the interior, leaving the bakery to start from scratch, something it does every day in making a cookie or a sticky bun.

Bartholomai said the original Croydon shop was 800 square feet. The Langhorne location is 1,600 square feet while the Bensalem location is 1,800 square feet.

The new space will be 6,034 square feet.

"I'm really nervous about it," she said. "It's a big move for us. But we're just wasting so much time. People can't move around. It's too cramped."

She said the bakery will introduce a few new items after the move with the new space, but won't be adding seating or a sitting area as some customers hoped.

Bartholomai hopes for a fall opening, maybe sometime in September.

"That may be a pipe dream," she said. "But we're coming up on our 50th anniversary on Nov. 7. So hopefully before then."