Federal Hill’s Oldest Bakery Closing in Providence

Federal Hill’s Oldest Bakery Closing in Providence

The oldest bakery on Federal Hill in Providence is closing. 

Veteran chef and restaurant owner Walter Potenza posted Sunday, “Iconic Scialo Bakery on the Hill Closes.”

“With the passing of Lois [one of the owners] recently, the building and the owner have sold to investors,” wrote Potenza, who has owned numerous restaurants and culinary schools on Atwells Avenue. 

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Potenza wrote:

Food businesses come and go, sometimes wholly unnoticed. Rhode Island is experiencing the closure of several restaurants and shops for a multitude of reasons. The pandemic certainly did not help, and many of the places already on fragile terrain inevitably collapsed. Every time a business closes in a confined neighborhood, there is a loss of identity, a loss of belonging, and community ritualism.

The closing of Scialo Bakery on 257 Atwells Avenue in Providence ends a magnificent chapter of the Italian settlement's culinary rainbow. After 104 years, the famous landmark turns the brick ovens off. When Luigi Scialo landed in Providence (1916), from Pomigliano d'Arco near the city of Naples, he probably never envisioned that its Art Deco storefront would become a local and national icon in the baking landscape.