Chicago’s Gonnella Baking Co. turns 125 this year.
Which makes it older than the Ferris Wheel, Cracker Jack, Lenox china and Salisbury steak — old enough to lay claim to the title oldest baker in Chicago says Tom Marcucci, a Gonnella vice president whose grandfather was founder Alessandro Gonnella’s brother-in-law.
The founding Gonnella was an immigrant from Tuscany. He found a job at a bakery on DeKoven Street whose owner was from the Piedmont region in northern Italy, where the bread is “light and airy,” says Marcucci.
In 1886, Gonnella bought the storefront bakery from his boss, making Italian- and French-style breads. In 1896, he moved it to Sangamon Street, near Grand Avenue. Somewhere in between, he went back to Italy to get married, and, little by little, his extended family moved to Chicago to help at the bakery.
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