Before every home game, the Eagles eat cherry pop tarts and cinnamon brioche from this Society Hill bakery

At 2 a.m. Sunday, many Philadelphians lay sound asleep. But Kelsey Bush and her team of chefs were busy baking pop tarts and croissants inside Loretta’s in Society Hill. By 7 a.m., those pastries were inside the cafeteria at the Philadelphia Eagles’ training facility in South Philly, ready to fuel 53 players for the NFC Championship Game.

Loretta’s, the new bakery from the team behind Bloomsday, supplies 150 to 230 pastries for the Eagles at every home game — Sunday was no exception.

The Eagles devoured chocolate croissants and lemon ricotta danishes from the bakery before beating the Washington Commanders, 55-23, and clinching a spot in Super Bowl LIX.

“Eagles fans are extremely superstitious — we don’t mess with tradition, so we keep [all the pastries] the same for every game,” said Bush, who also co-owns Bloomsday next door and Green Engine Coffee Co. in Haverford.

The bakery’s relationship with the Eagles began about three years ago when chef Abigail Dahan introduced the team’s director of food and beverage, Eric Montijo, to Bloomsday Cafe. (Dahan, the pastry chef at Provenance and a James Beard semifinalist, also provides desserts for draft day and other events, Montijo said.)

“We sampled a few items and knew it would be a hit,” Montijo said of Bloomsday’s pastries. “You can tell the love and patience that are put into their pastries — the way the pastries are laminated and baked to perfection is so impressive. I was a chef for over 15 years and wouldn’t even attempt making any French pastries.”

Since then, Bush and her team have remained the go-to pastry chefs for home games, even as their operations expanded with the opening of Loretta’s in November. The bakery now produces more pastries than Bloomsday and Green Engine Coffee combined, she said.

At the start of the year, the Loretta’s team maps out Eagles home games to prepare for Montijo’s standing order, which include danishes, brioche, croissants, and pop tarts — all of which are also available for customers at the bakery. On game days, the team begins baking at 2 a.m., with deliveries to the NovaCare training center by 7 a.m. “This year, just the fact that we had three home games in a row I was, like ‘Oh my God, OK it’s go time,’” Bush said.

Cinnamon brioche, white chocolate pistachio danishes, and cherry pop tarts are the crowd-pleasers, she said. The Eagles can’t get enough, including offensive tackle Jordan Mailata. “It was so cute because it was one of the first games his parents got to see him play, and Eric told us [Mailata] brought two dozen of the pastries back for them,” Bush said.

“Having multiple options to choose from just reminded me of the bakeries that I grew up with in Australia that had similar options. [That’s] why I brought back a box for my parents to make them feel more at home,” Mailata told the Inquirer via email.

Mailata doesn’t have a single favorite from the selection — “it’s hard to choose,” he said — the white chocolate pistachio danishes do stand out of the crowd to him.

For Bush, feeding Mailata and his teammates is a point of city pride. “I love doing it because my family loves it and it’s just another thing to connect us with Philadelphia,” Bush said.

“You never say no to them,” she added. “And you can’t mess with the juju — it’s very sacred.”