When Metropolitan Bakery locked up its Rittenhouse storefront on March 15 after more than three decades, regulars braced for the worst. A Philly staple was gone from 19th Street, and it looked like some of the city’s favorite loaves might vanish with it. Instead, the breads are simply changing neighborhoods: Merzbacher's of Germantown has bought the Metropolitan brand, recipes and equipment and will keep those signature loaves in circulation from its Germantown production facility. Co-founder James Barrett is even staying on as a consultant during the transition, so customers should still be able to spot Metropolitan favorites around town even as the original shop goes dark.
According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Merzbacher will keep Metropolitan's wholesale and mail-order operations running while his team learns the ropes at Metropolitan's Fishtown facility. Much of the baking will then shift to Germantown. He told the paper he hopes to hire as many of Metropolitan's roughly 40 employees as he can, and that the two bakeries' product lines will stay distinct even while sharing space and resources.
How the switch will work
Merzbacher's has laid out a transition plan saying that recipes, production methods and delivery rhythms will stay familiar while its crew takes over Metropolitan's wholesale program. The Germantown bakery at 4530 Germantown Ave is set to house equipment moved over from Metropolitan, including stone mills, mixers and a deck oven, and Merzbacher says the goal is to keep Metropolitan's hallmark breads true to form while continuing his own lines, per Merzbacher's.
Where to buy Metropolitan goods now
Wholesale customers are not expected to see much disruption. Merzbacher's plans to keep delivering to the dozens of restaurants and markets that already carried Metropolitan products and to keep supplying farmers markets and specialty shops, according to PhillyVoice. The Metropolitan Bakery site also lists current wholesale partners and notes that customers can continue to order online while everything shifts behind the scenes.
Jobs and the local impact
Local reporting indicates Merzbacher's brought on nearly every Metropolitan employee who wanted to make the jump, and the combined operation now supports roughly 41 to 42 bakery jobs, up from about 22 to 23 at Merzbacher's before the deal, per Chestnut Hill Local. Keeping those roles in baking, packing and delivery helped preserve Metropolitan’s long-standing relationships with neighborhood co-ops and restaurants during the changeover.
For a city that treats small-batch bread like a minor sport, the outcome is unusually upbeat: the recipes, much of the staff and the wholesale routes are intact instead of scattered. Merzbacher says his focus is on learning the systems that already work and, in his words, "not breaking anything that isn't broken," according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.
