Termini Brothers is giving away tiles from its famous bakery floor

Joey and Vinny Termini couldn’t put it off any longer. It was time to replace the bakery floor.

The third-generation owners of Termini Brothers bakery fretted this bit of remodeling. Their late grandfather, Joseph Termini, lauded as the city’s “King of Cannoli,” built the family bakery from scratch. And was proud of it.

When his son, Vincent Sr., took over the business and later Joey and Vinny, the king imparted that pride, along with a decree: Leave it alone.

The wooden display cases, tin ceilings, linoleum countertops. Leave it alone. The big brass scale, antique candy jars, and old clock. Leave it all alone.

“He made it from the bottom up,” said Vincent Termini Sr. “He figured if we changed anything, it wouldn’t be from the bottom up anymore.”

Over the years, as the holiday lines grew so long that Vincent Sr. invited everyone out of the cold and into the kitchen, and as the business grew into a Philadelphia institution with other locations, the pristinely preserved bakery on South 8th Street came to represent something more: tradition.

“We don’t like change much,” said Vinny Termini.

But the floor. The beautiful, black-and-white porcelain pinwheeled-tiled design that Joseph Termini and his brother, Gaetano, selected in 1938, when they moved into a bigger shop across from their original corner bakery. The one that has sleekly wound through towering displays of sfogliatelle, zeppoli, and cannoli, all made from recipes Joseph Termini carried with him from Sicily. The one that swirled through generations of sugar-infused childhood memories.

They could no longer leave it alone. Despite Joey and Vinny’s best efforts — portions of worn tile had been replaced over the years — it was deteriorating. The subfloor was crumbling. It had become a trip hazard. They selected the most similar design they could find.

“Our hands were kind of forced,” said Vinny.

Priding themselves on the bond the bakery has built with its customers, Joey and Vinny Termini expected a response when they announced on social media last month that the shop would temporarily close as the new floor was installed.

They did not expect the outpouring that followed.

The posts went viral. Hundreds of customers commented, sent messages, called. One neighbor wrote a letter by hand.

“The first response was, ‘What the hell are you guys doing?’ ” Joey Termini said with a laugh. “We had to talk them down.”

Reporters called. News cameras set up under the neon bakery sign.

Customer after customer shared sweetly-tinged stories of long-ago bakery trips and treasured traditions, of rum cakes and lamb cakes and Italian cream cakes, of bygone Easters when Joseph Termini, or “Mr. Joe,” as he was known in his trademark paper hat and white apron, dished out cream puffs to neighborhood kids, of wedding proposals and lost loved ones, of sad and happy tears shed on a bakery floor.

More than anything, people wanted to know: Could they have a piece of tile?

Julie Gubitosa Ferris asked for a piece to remember her father, who died when she was 2. He would take her and her sister to Termini’s for cupcakes and cannolis.

“There’s something about having a piece of the floor he walked on with us,” she wrote.

Jodi Griffith, 44, of Downingtown, remembered “pressing her nose against the glass to choose my dessert” whenever her late grandmother took her to Termini Brothers.

“I would love a piece,” she said.

Frances Cimorelli Gery, 77, of Pennsburg, asked for a tile to honor her late cousin, Mary Arcaro, who worked at the bakery for nearly 50 years.

Arcaro — affectionately known as “Big Mary” — never failed to arrive at family parties without stacks of white boxes stuffed with treats from Termini Brothers.

“Having those delicious baked goods was her way to say I care about you,” said Cimorelli Gery.

Some offered $50 a tile.

“Immediately, my brother and I looked at each other and said, ‘It’s not about that. We’re giving these away, this is theirs,’ ” Vinny Termini said.

With the new floor now installed, and the shop back open, Joey and Vinny Termini hope to begin handing out the 3,000 tiles sometime in September (for now, the tiles are “stored somewhere safe,” Vinny said, with a laugh.)

“They are a representation of the business and just like everything else we do, it’s got to be done right,” said Joey Termini.

Each tile will be packaged, and to guard against hoarders, customers will likely need to make a purchase of any cost at the Eighth Street shop. Joey and Vinny have set aside ones for special customers, old employees, and the holiday diehards (”We have our little stash,” Vinny Termini said.)

They understand the emotions stirred by a little piece of porcelain.

Building a business from nothing, Joseph Termini seemingly never threw away a single pastry knife, ice cream scoop, marzipan mold, almond crate, or cookie tin. The countless keepsakes now decorate the bakery and the family’s cafe across the street, Nonna & Pop’s.

“Our history, our lineage of being a Philadelphia institution carries a lot of weight for us,” Vinny Termini said.

On a recent afternoon, Joey and Vinny gave a tour of the new floor to their father, Vincent Termini Sr., 85. The new black-and-white tiles, shaped like flowers, shined. Vincent Termini said he knew just what his father would say, if he were still around:

“Good, now leave it alone.”