BAKERY MARKS 50 YEARS
NORWALK — The last time her family’s bakeries got through a crisis anything like 2020, Angela Ferreira has to reach back to the Great Depression and stories she heard from her grandmother, of shoppers in Brooklyn asking to have their sweets bagged like any common loaf of bread so as not to be seen by those on the street going hungry with indulgences like dessert in hand.
But on Christmas Eve this year, she anticipates the line will be out the door at Angela Mia Italian Bakery in Norwalk — with customers more than happy to show off the colorful goodies destined for their family holiday spreads.
On the threshold of its 50th year in business this week, the full smorgasbord was in full view, from trays of petite cannoli with colorful sprinkles on top, to a boulevard of gingerbread houses stretching the length of the shop, amplified by a backing mirror to give the appearance of double the number.
In the picture window out front and the glass shelves inside, any number of more desserts were on display to include holidaythemed cookies, tiny mousse tarts and Italian classics like doughnut-shaped rococo biscuits. And on the back wall were layers of cakes that Ferreira says rival Angela Mia’s cannoli as the biggest draw in 50 years in business.
Like many Fairfield County shops, Angela Mia Italian Bakery has gotten its share of famous customers, in its case to include Kirk Douglas, Paul Newman and Tom Selleck.
The bakery reaches the half-century milestone on Dec. 19, the date in 1970 when Joe Agoglia opened the shop still located today at 247 Connecticut Ave. Angela Mia is the third-generation iteration of the original Premiata Pastry opened in Brooklyn by Luigi DelPrete and a second shop opened by his daughter Cristina and her husband Pasquale Agoglia, who had worked there since the age of 9.
Their son Joe named the Norwalk bakery after daughter Angela, whose own eldest daughter Cristina continues to help out after having graduated from the University of Connecticut and now pursuing a master’s degree in business.
Agoglia said he has considered mass distribution in the past, but has chosen to stick with running the bakery shop.
“We would lose the quality of product,” he said. “I just wanted to stay the way I always was — a family run business. ... All my employees have been like family over the years.”
On Thursday as the Food and Drug Administration deliberated on studies submitted by Pfizer and BioNTech in support of their COVID-19 vaccine candidate, Agoglia thought back to those days last March as pandemic closures seized up the economy, and the arc of Angela Mia’s history in Norwalk back to the lines forming on the first day, “like yesterday” in his words.
Joe Agoglia says everyone he knows who has been hit with the COVID-19 virus has recovered. He plans to get vaccinated when given the opportunity.
“I was hoping that in a couple of weeks it would get straightened out,” Agoglia said. “Then it went to a month, then two months, then three months. I said, ‘OK, it’s got to be getting a little bit better now — this can’t be happening in America.’”