Conti's Pastry Shoppe, the Bronx bakery that has been turning out Boston cream pies and Italian butter cookies since 1921, is expanding beyond Morris Park for the first time. The shop is remodeling a new location on Mill Road in Eastchester, with plans to open its doors there in early 2027.
The new outpost will offer traditional baked goods and pastries alongside a fully equipped coffee bar, according to Westchester Magazine. The bakery was founded by Augustino Conti, an Italian immigrant from Parma, and has operated at 786 Morris Park Ave. in the Bronx for more than a century, per the same report. It remains one of the oldest bakeries in Morris Park's Italian neighborhood, a corridor still lined with the kind of family-run shops that gave the strip its identity.
Today the shop is owned by Christina DiRusso, Safet Paljevic and Senada Paljevic, all described in the Westchester Magazine piece as first-generation Bronx-born and raised owners. The bakery's own historical account, however, contains some inconsistency about exactly when that ownership began: bxtimes.com reported in one story that Safet Paljevic and his partners took over in 2001, while a separate bxtimes.com piece on the shop's 90th anniversary stated the trio has continued Augustino's legacy since 2003. Both dates have circulated in the bakery's own press coverage, and the discrepancy has never been resolved.
A Landmark Built on Original Recipes
Conti's still uses its original recipes to produce traditional Italian baked goods and pastries, and the Bronx location retains hand-stapled tin ceilings, wood walls and terrazzo floors that date back generations, per Westchester Magazine. The shop's original marble soda fountain, installed in 1928, remains in place, a detail also documented by bronxmama.com. Those same tin ceilings, wood walls, terrazzo floors, marble counters and the 1928 soda fountain were highlighted again in bxtimes.com's coverage marking the bakery's 90th year in business.
The business hasn't been without hard stretches. In 2010, the New York City Department of Health shut the bakery down for two weeks, according to bxtimes.com's centennial retrospective. The shop rebounded, and by 2018 it had broadened its menu well past its Italian roots, adding sweet potato pies, red velvet cakes, cake pops, funfetti cookies and macarons alongside its black-and-white cookies and cannoli, as reported by abbewichman.com. That same report noted the shop was producing roughly 350 to 400 customized cakes a week that year, a boom bxtimes.com says allowed the owners to expand the store, add space for cake decorating and an office, and grow their catering operation.
What's Coming to Mill Road
The Eastchester location will offer customized cakes for birthdays, anniversaries and other milestones alongside traditional baked goods, and the owners plan to preserve Conti's original recipes while modernizing the operation and adding their own spin, according to Westchester Magazine. Conti's celebrated its 100th anniversary on October 23, 2021, a milestone bxtimes.com marked with a separate report on the bakery's name being honored in a Morris Park street renaming.
Store manager Arielle Ramirez told Westchester Magazine that Conti's Bronx legacy cannot be matched, noting that people in their 90s still return to the shop for birthday cakes. She said the bakery is run by people who love what they do and have a passion for creating and baking, and that the team hopes to serve the community for another 100 years.
