Sanitary Bakery

Sanitary Bakery, October 30 2004

I took another load of cupcakes and donuts from Sanitary Bakery in to work today. Sanitary is one of a dying breed, the local bakery - the last one left in Nanticoke. Most small-town bakeries have been driven out of business by supermarkets and discount stores that sell mass-produced pastries at cut-rate prices. Still, there's something to be said for taste. Everybody at work loves the stuff from Sanitary, but they can never get over the name. Sanitary? Well, I should hope so.

It's an old name, from a long-ago time - 1948, to be exact. Names like that were used to stress the cleanliness of the place. There's a national supermarket chain that carries another of those names that were supposed to be reassuring - Safeway. We don't have any Safeways around here, so the comparison really doesn't help most of the locals to understand. (I think the only Safeway I have ever been in was in Arlington, Virginia. It was a pretty scary place - I didn't feel safe there at all.)

For a long time I've kicked around the idea of doing an entry on Sanitary, but I realized I would need to do some research before I could say anything more than "funny name, good stuff." Fortunately, while picking up the cupcakes and donuts this morning I saw a hand-written sign taped to the wall: "Visit our website at http://www.sanitarybakery.com/". They've done all the exposition work for me.

So there you go: funny name, good stuff, all explained at the Sanitary Bakery website. When visiting Nanticoke, be sure to stop by for the best pastries around!