This is part of a series about Hoboken that will run twice a month in the Current and the Hoboken Reporter. It will feature long-established, family-owned and operated businesses that add to the charm of our fair city.
“You see what they say about [my] energy,” broadcasted Mary Valastro, the eternally bubbly matriarch of Carlo’s City Hall Bake Shop and Café, as she bounded around enthusiastically greeting customers with a time-honed familiarity.
Hoboken residents frequently visit the Washington Street landmark to scoop up some of the city’s best lobster tails, pignoli cookies, and of course, the cannoli, an Italian staple.
Maybe Valastro’s infectious exuberance is the result of a few too many of their bakery’s delectable sweets, but more likely her charisma has deeper roots. For her life begins and ends with family. Seven days a week she is surrounded by her three daughters, son, and their spouses, as they successfully run the daily operations at bakery across the street from City Hall.
“This is the American dream,” Mary said. “We came from Italy and found that if you work hard, and have a passion about what you do, you can make it here.”
Nearly a century in Hoboken
The story of Carlo’s began in 1910 when Carlo Guastaferro, an immigrant from mainland Italy, opened a modest Italian bakery across from City Hall in his adopted hometown. In the early 1950s, Guastaferro hired a young and ambitious pot washer named Bartolo Valastro, a native of volcanic Lipari Island, off the northern coast of Sicily. While Valastro had begun his training as an apprentice to an Italian bread baker when he was only 7, he came to Hoboken as a teenager with nothing but desire.
“My father came here with no shoes on his feet and no money,” said son Bartolo “Buddy” Valastro Jr., who is a baker himself. “But that didn’t stop him from being successful.”
The elder Valastro learned the craft from Guastaferro, and in 1964 when Carlo was ready to retire, Valastro Sr. bought the bakery. It has been in the Valastro family since.
Since Valastro Sr. passed away 12 years ago, Mary, Buddy, and the rest of the clan have manned the 25-foot long glass case filled with classic pastries, cookies and small cakes.
Everything from scratch
“Here we make everything from scratch, no mixes; nothing comes from a box. Even our cannoli shells are made from scratch,” Valastro Jr. said. “We [bake] with love here, using the old ways and old traditions, and that’s what sets us apart.”
He added that the fact that it’s still family owned and operated adds a level of consistency and quality that one isn’t going to find at the local grocery store.
“Baking is in our blood,” Valastro Jr. said.
A ton of sugar a week
But just because Carlo’s pays reverence to the past, doesn’t mean they aren’t keeping up with contemporary trends. Currently in vogue are highly individualized cakes that appear in so many magazines and at so many celebrity weddings.
Tucked away in the top two floors of the retail business lie nearly 7,000 square feet of production space, largely used to assemble Carlo’s award winning cakes.
“Whatever you can dream, we’re going to be able to create,” Valastro Jr. said with a confident smile. “Just bring in a picture or an idea.”
He and his staff of 10 uses over a ton of sugar each week to create more than 300 wedding, shower, birthday and other special occasion cakes. Recently, Valastro Jr. constructed a 6-foot replica of the Empire State building. He has created intricate replicas of Gucci and Versace bags, and detailed re-creations of Manolo Blahnik shoes, where even the individual stitches are visible.
“For us it’s all about the little details,” Valastro Jr., “Oh, and also making sure that what looks good, also tastes good.”
For his own wedding, he designed and made a 500-pound, 10-tier cake he estimates would cost about $10,000. Even the process of making each flower is a painstaking effort. A small rolling pin flattens the dough-like confection. Then cookie-cutters cut each “petal,” which a team of workers gently and precisely roll together to create a rose, tulip, or lily.
Several dozen of the bakery’s cakes have been featured in the bride-to-be bible Modern Bride magazine, and inside numerous other glossy magazines.
A Hoboken institution
In just four years, Carlo’s will be celebrating its 100th anniversary in business. While they are still going strong, Valastro Jr. said that it’s sad to see so many of the family owned Hoboken’s businesses close over the past several years.
He said that everything is more expensive today, which places burdens on small business owners.
“But you don’t have to worry about us going anywhere,” Buddy said, as his mother stood by his side. “We’re here to stay.”