There’s only three more days to get your daily fix of fresh baking from City Bakery. After 120 years of business in the Trail community – 87 of those in the hands of the Merlo family – the “baked fresh daily” shop is closing its doors for good on Saturday...
...While this may seem a bittersweet story at first – after all, another pioneering Trail business is closing – it really isn’t. That’s because Rino and Grace Merlo, owners of City Bakery since 1973, are all about looking ahead to future needs in the City of Trail. They have plans to re-purpose the estate, which extends from the Cedar Avenue Lotto outlet past the bakery, to the ComfortWalk & Orthotics Solution shoe store...
...This was the year to make the decision, though Rino says marketing changes and people’s buying habits for bread and baked goods have certainly changed over the decades, and made it very difficult for an independent to compete with business giants like Dempster’s.
So it’s time to move on. But that doesn’t mean Rino’s lifetime of memories will ever fade, and those recollections shine a nostalgic light on what it was like to grow up in downtown Trail during the war years, the flood years and through the dawn of technology.
Rino was born in 1935 and lived above City Bakery, except when attending university, until he married Grace in 1960.
His father Guiseppe (Joe) and Zio Alphonso (Uncle Al) bought the business from their older brother Federico in 1930, back when dough rose overnight, wood fueled the ovens, and bread sold for 7 cents a loaf.
Joe passed away in 1995, but fortunately, part of his story is forever memorialized in the City of Trail history books.
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The story goes on with an historical account of the Merlo family.]
Read on at the Trail Daily Times