PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — One of the last remaining highest-accredited kosher bakeries in Center City is shutting its doors this week.
Homemade Goodies by Roz has been on Fifth Street for 24 years. It received kosher certification in 2009, which owner Roz Bratt said gave her the boost in clientele she needed to survive the Great Recession.
The coronavirus pandemic, however, was a slump she couldn’t overcome. On Friday, her bakery will close for good.
Bratt said the lack of help during the pandemic pushed her business over the edge.
“Everybody in this industry can’t find help. Not only in Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania, New Jersey — they can’t find help,” she said. “I think maybe people are still scared about coming out, working again.”
Bratt used to make a lot of celebratory cakes — weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, birthdays. But business dropped significantly over the past year as most events and gatherings were canceled.
Related
Her customers will have to go elsewhere for kosher goodies, which worries her.
“They’ll go either to Elkins Park to Rolings [Bakery] or they’ll go to Best Cake in Overbrook Park. Or, to the supermarkets that have kosher bakeries,” she said. “Mom and pop bakeries are dying, and that’s what I am.”
Not all kosher certifications are the same, Bratt noted, and very few go to the lengths to obtain the highest kosher certification, which she did.
“We are with Community Kashrut of Greater Philadelphia. We are also Pas Yisroel [certified], which goes back to biblical times,” she said. That level of certification follows stricter kosher standards and requires an Orthodox Jew to participate in the baking process as well as supervise and uphold kosher rules.
“Lighting the oven, cracking our eggs, burning our dough, saying a prayer over it, and that makes him a part of the baking process,” she explained.
Related
In addition to being a go-to bakery for the Center City Orthodox Jewish community, there was a time when Bratt’s baked goods could be found all over Philadelphia.
“I used to bake for Borders, Barnes and Noble, Cosi, Walnut Street Theatre, Delilah’s at Reading Terminal, most of the smaller cafes in the city.”
Friday will be the last day for retail sales at Homemade Goodies by Roz.