Bakery the heart of Facer Street history
In many ways, St. Joseph’s Bakery & Delicatessen is as much a community museum as it is a bake shop.
From its exterior walls to the machinery used to make bread, pieces of Facer Street’s history can be found preserved, like insects trapped in amber, at the 52-yearold bakery.
Even its name is sign-post to the neighbourhood’s past.
“The legend is that it is named after my father Joe,” says owner Derek Kedzierski. “But it was really named after the Catholic school that used to be next door. It made sense at the time. St. Joseph’s school and St. Joseph’s bakery.”
There is no escaping the bakery’s Catholic roots. Set into the wall under the marquee is a diorama of the Nativity, with Mary and Joseph, the bakery’s namesake holding the baby Jesus. A statue of Joseph stands in the manager’s office. “It is the way it was back then,” Kedzierski says. “All the Polish kids went to the Catholic school, St. Joseph’s, and everyone else went to the public school, Prince of Wales.”
For the past eight years, Kedzierski has presided over the bakery, a store he calls the “glue” of Facer Street in St. Catharines. The family business’s history as a neighbourhood hub is why Kedzierski is a key player in the second annual Facer European Festival, taking place on the civic holiday Monday.
Last year the festival, which raises money for neighbourhood improvements, drew about 10,000 people. Billed as a celebration of the area’s Old World roots, it also aims to a rebuild a sense of community from days gone by.
“It already is,” says Kedzierski, the festival treasurer. “Before last year’s festival, I didn’t really know many of the other business owners on Facer Street. They were just people on the street. But now we are getting know each other.”
This year’s festival will feature live music, including polka performances by Walter Ostanek and the Polanie Band, and a perogy-eating contest.
Like last year, St. Joseph’s will be a hub of activity for the festival, befitting its history as a focal point of the neighbourhood.
Kedzierski says the bakery opened by his father and his grandparents after they emigrated from Poland after the Second World War. None of them were bakers or knew how to produce goods on a scale to make a business thrive.
“It is crazy if you think about it, to get into a business you basically don’t know anything about. But that was the kind of people they were. They learned by a trial by fire.”
After a year of hard work, they sold the bakery with an eye to move onto other ventures. Fate, however, had a different idea.
“All the good will they built up was lost in the two years it was owned by someone else,” Kedzierski says. “So they bought it back, and it’s been the family business ever since.”
What Joe Kedzierski lacked in bakery experience he made up for in work ethic. He started his work day at 3 a.m. and would stay until the evening, earning the respect and loyalty of his customers.
Kedzierski says he never intended to stay with the family business. As a teenager, he and his siblings worked in the bakery, doing deliveries or working the till, but by the time he was 15 Kedzierski had other plans.
“I felt I had to stand on my own feet and go my own way.”
Again, fate had other plans. Eight years ago Kedzierski and his father travelled to British Columbia for a fishing trip. While in the airport, the elder Kedzierski had a heart attack.
“So I told my father that I had been working for years to make someone else rich, so maybe it was time for me to work at the bakery and make the family rich and make his life easier,” he says.
For nearly a decade Kedzierski learned the craft of baking from his father, who eventually admitted the student had surpassed the teacher. Although his health was failing, Joe Kedzierski still showed up for work every day.
Kedzierski says business remained steady, and the bakery expanded both in size and the variety of goods it produced. But the neighbourhood around the bakery changed. St. Joseph’s school closed. Some businesses moved away, and the street fell into a state of decline.
Then, a little more than a year ago, Roberto Vergalito of Roberto’s Pizza on Facer Street handed out fliers calling for a community meeting. Kedzierski didn’t know what the meeting was about, but he and his father went anyway. That meeting was the genesis of the European festival, which Joe Kedzierski thought could be the way to revitalize the neighbourhood.
Joe Kedzierski died shortly after last year’s festival. His son said his father was happy to see so many people celebrate the neighbourhood.
For more information about the festival, including a full schedule of events, go online to http://facereuropeanfestival.com.