Faragalli’s Bakery says it may close for good after its giant, wood-fired oven collapsed

For generations, Faragalli’s Bakery in South Philadelphia has been known for two things: distinctive, old-world bread, and the colossal oven that bakes it.

The corner bakery is thought to be the only wood-fired hearth production bakery in the city. The family baked their unvarnished, rustic loaves with flames kindled by South Philly scrap wood. Since 1945, three generations of Faragallis have toiled in the maw of the bakery’s ancient oven. In all those years, the only times its scorching stones have cooled are when Phil Faragalli, 72, has crawled inside the cavernous space — the hearth is the size of a well-apportioned rowhouse living room — to clean and make repairs.

But now, the old oven may bake no more, and the venerable bakery is closed — perhaps for good — after portions of their century-old firebrick oven collapsed in December.

The oven, which was built in a Washington Avenue factory before World War I, was showing its age in recent years, Faragalli said. But the family says it baked fine before the water department drilled into the street just outside the bakery with a backhoe.

“The whole building shook,” says Phil Faragalli Jr., who works the bakery with his father and was there when everything started to rumble. “I hollered, ‘Yo guys!’ It felt like the studs in the basement were shaking.”

Faragalli got back inside the oven to inspect the damage. He cleared out dozens of heavy bricks and stuffed holes with fire insulation.

Faragalli says debris damaged the oven’s damper, which ventilates smoke. In recent months, the Faragallis struggled to keep their business going, even as their oven, which could normally turn out hundreds of loaves a day, lost heat and belched heavy smoke.

Earlier this month, after having to bake their Easter orders in the oven of another South Philly bakery, Phil Faragalli closed the family business.

“It just got to the point where I said, ‘Enough is enough,’” he said. “It would be pointless to keep going.”

Yet to find someone to fix the oven — and unsure of the costs — Phil Faragalli doesn’t know if he’ll ever reopen.

For the tiny bakery, which has preserved a timeless style of breadmaking in South Philly, the damage is about much more than the cost of a piece of equipment. It’s the cost of their family’s heritage.

“It’s killing us,” Phil Faragalli said.

While he fears his bakery could be ruined, Faragalli has yet to file a report with the Philadelphia Water Department about his oven. But said he plans to.

City-contracted crews have been digging up streets in Passyunk Square for months, installing new pipes that carry water to homes and businesses. The project, which has left many neighbors frustrated over street closures and traffic delays, is expected to last through summer, said Brian Rademaekers, a Water Department spokesperson.

The Water Department has not received any reports of damage to homes or businesses, he said.

“The city has a process for individuals and businesses to file a claim,” he said, adding that if business owners believe their property was damaged during construction, they should file a claim with their insurance or the contractor’s insurance.

According to city policy, the Faragallis have six months from when they say the damage occurred to file a claim with the Office of Risk Management.

“We can’t help someone if we don’t know something happened,” Rademaekers said.

Originally coal-fired, the oven came with the corner shop newlyweds Anthony and Marie Faragalli bought at 13th and Reed in 1945. Anthony Faragalli, who had learned to bake bread as an army cook during World War II, and his wife, who everyone called “Maemoe,” raised seven children in the rooms above the bakery.

“There was always a warm feeling and the smell of baking bread,” Phil Faragalli said about growing up above the shop.

He joined his father, who died in 1980, and older brother, Anthony Jr., at the oven after high school. He remembers that fateful day in the late 1970s, when the bakery’s coal delivery never showed.

With bread to bake, Anthony Faragalli told his son to go get his sister’s wooden desk, adding, “And don’t listen to your mother.”

Still without coal the next day, he told his son to get the third floor doors.

“From that point on, we were burning wood,” Phil Faragalli said.

Neighborhood contractors and builders, who would otherwise have to pay the dump, knew to haul their wood to Faragalli’s, who would take it free of charge.

Baking with South Philly scrap, Faragalli’s made bread the old way. No preservatives, with only flour, water, yeast, and a little salt. Dense and chewy, and each bite containing a whiff of the campfire, their bread landed on tables of Italian restaurants across the city.

The bread that came out of Faragalli’s oven just tasted different.

“There’s something special about that oven,” Phil Faragalli said.

He would know. Only the bread has been in it more than him.

He’d let the oven cool for days when he had to climb inside, like when he installed steel plates along the oven roof. Someone would spray him with a hose to keep him cool, then pull him out of the oven door.

“It’s like another world,” he said of being in the oven.

The smoke from the damaged oven just became too much, he said.

“I worried it would hurt my family,” he said.

He’s searching for someone who could fix it, but said not everyone is eager to crawl into an oven that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Pompeii.

“Nobody wants to go in there,” he said. “Contractors don’t want to mess with that.”

On a recent afternoon, the father and son bakers stood by the oven they had worked their whole lives, and now don’t expect to light anytime soon.

“This was my future and my father’s retirement,” Phil Faragalli Jr. said. “I can’t imagine going on without our bread.”