The Conshohocken Bakery; The Sweet Smell of an Addition by Jack Coll

The Conshohocken Bakery

The Sweet Smell Of An Addition

By Jack Coll

On Wednesday evening, June 25th, the management of the Conshohocken Bakery invited residents, neighbors, friends, and officials to attend an unveiling meeting at The Great American Pub, to show off an expansion project they hope to build on the corner of Spring Mill Avenue and Jones Street. When I say hope to build I mean the project hasn’t gone before the borough’s Land Development or Zoning boards as of yet.

So when Tina Gambone, of the bakery discussed the project with all due respect she mentioned several times that the project still needs the blessing of the borough. The corner lot for the new Conshohocken Bakery Retail and Pastry Shop is aesthetically designed to fit into the existing neighborhood. “We did our homework to locate a quality, architecture firm experienced in this field,” noted Gambone, “we are extremely concerned with the neighborhood, not to build something that would stick out like a sore thumb.”

The Gambone family hired Conshohocken based Kimmel Bogrette Architecture firm. Kimmel Bogrette is an award winning firm that has designed facilities all over the country. Locally they designed Temple University Field House, Philadelphia Cricket Club, but what impressed the Gambone’s was the work they did designing the Conshohocken Fellowship House ten years ago.

According to Michael Gambone, partners in the bakery with his father Dominic, when researching the architects we couldn’t help but notice that Jim Bogrette and Martin Kimmel paid close attention to detail, being based in Conshohocken they understood the importance of thinking and knowing that the neighbors wanted something that would dress up the intersection of Jones and Spring Mill, and not look like an addition that was dropped in from some other community.

The Conshohocken Bakery opened their doors in Conshohocken on March 15, 1972. Dominic Gambone and Frank Manzi took a great chance on Conshohocken back then. The borough was in an economic slide, the lower end redevelopment project had stalled, and most if not all businesses had shunned Conshohocken calling it a risky investment at best.

That didn’t stop Dominic and Frank, they saw something in Conshohocken, and they were willing to take a chance on the borough. When the doors of the bakery opened the borough welcomed them with open arms, mostly because of the well needed tax base and the promise that the bakery might someday grow and bring jobs to the borough.

Well more than 40 years later, the bakery is ready to grow, everything the borough had hoped for back in 1972. To grow in modern times means adapting to modern concepts that enable growth. Of course, this includes effective marketing. Often it can be hard to understand what marketing company is right to propel your business further. If you are struggling to understand too, then you may want to read this blog article from Whitehat. The bakery currently has a 330 square foot retail store, at times customers find themselves standing in line on the sidewalk outside the store in an attempt to purchase products. The long lines have caused parking issues because the flow of purchases just isn’t fast enough to turn around the parking spots.

The Gambone family and Kimmel Bogrette have addressed all the principal issues for the customers and the surrounding residents. Tina noted that it’s a one story addition, not two or three, even though the code might have allowed that, we wanted one story. The retail space will go from 330 square feet to 1300 square feet, enabling us to serve the customer with more products in less time. We will open a large parking lot on the opposite corner that will also direct our customers one way in and one way out, very little if any resident parking will be affected.

The retail store will have no indoor seating, with perhaps down the line a couple of outdoor tables for customers and residents to relax in. “We will not be selling sandwiches of any kind noted both Michael and Tina, we are not, nor will we be a lunchtime operation or a deli of any kind, we would not think about competing with the other food venues in town. Although the store will sell some essentials like milk and eggs at the residents and customers request. So the question was asked what will you be selling? The answer is good and bad, the good is they will be selling all the products they currently sell, the bad news for some of us is they will also be selling pastries, sweets, cakes, and excuse the expression “Kickass Cannoli” The sale of those products will result in most of us who are stopping by to pick up a dozen rolls for dinner, to likely size up a sweet or two, or three.

The Conshohocken Bakery is a family owned business who has supported this borough for more than forty years. Dominic Gambone has contributed to every organization from boy scouts to borough youth leagues to all the churches, to every event this borough has run in the past forty years. This is exactly the type of business project we need to get behind, this is the type of expansion, and the type of business this borough was built and grew on going back more than a century when family businesses dominated corner grocery stores on every block.

The Conshohocken Bakery has accumulated a lot of friends over the years, and we are inviting all those friends to help the bakery by signing a petition for approval for the bakery retail expansion. Please stop by the bakery to sign, or if you’re at the other end of town you can feel free to stop by Coll’s Custom Framing to sign the petition, it’s your choice, you can stop by the frame shop and stare at the frames on the wall, or stop in at the bakery and smell what they have to offer. I hear there is talk of similar bakeries implementing event-driven applications to improve their understanding of their customer’s experience, mapping out data to drive more efficient strategies for the business. I wonder if that is something Conshohocken Bakery has considered.

The only problem I had with the entire plan was that once it’s approved by the borough for the new retail store, filled with all the sweets, it will take eight to twelve months before it opened, there has to be a faster way. And when it opens as well, it should be a good idea to make sure the bakery has the right business energy quote. My friend was telling me about the range of quotes that can be found on websites such as Usave.

Please stop by to sign the petition, and wish the bakery good luck!