I Am all in again.
Let's do.
Luke Steiner with Scott Patterson, an iHeartRadio podcast.
Hey everybody, Scott Patterson, I Am all In Podcast, one of them productions iHeartRadio Media.
iHeart Podcast.
Another segment of Luke Steiner with some very interesting guests. Today we have Mary Cheron and Buddy Castano. Let me tell you a little bit about Mary and Buddy. If you want to know about Mary and Buddy, you gotta know about Carlos.
Bakery and Hoboken, New.
Jersey, family owned legendary best known for stunning custom cakes, classic Italian pastries, and of course, being the home base of the hit TLC show Boss starring Buddy Velastro. The bakery was originally founded in nineteen ten by Carlo Costafero, Yes, and later acquired by the Velastro family in nineteen sixty four,
so you guys have had it nineteen sixty four. Since then, it's grown from a beloved local spot into a nationally recognized him multiple locations across the US, and an enormous online presence.
I love this story. I cannot tell you I have a coffee company.
We're trying to build up the same kind of business that you all have done since nineteen sixty four, So good on you for that. Listen, the two of you are part of quite the family business. Can you please give our listeners a little insight into how this all got started for your family.
Well, my our parents started it, you know, when they came here. My dad worked in different two different bakeries and then came to Carlo's Bakery and the owner Oarlo Augusta Farrow, had wanted to retire, he had a son. His son really didn't want to take part in the big in the business, so he said, you take over the business. I'll hold the loan for you. And my mom came in as a salesperson working in the front, and he kind of had his eye on her and he said, I'm going to marry you. We'll take over.
And that's really exactly what had happened. And they got married and she ran the front, he ran the back, and it was kind of like a perfect little setup, and that's really what happened. And they got married, had you know, five kids, and we were just kind of born in there. And I remember being a little kid, you know, all of us we used to play like on the big fifty pound flower sacks and we that's all we knew. That was our life. We were in
the bakery. We lived upstairs in the apartment, you know, and it was just the bakery was such a big part of our lives and it just it was a lot of hard work. You know, we were very hard working people and dedicated and grew it into this big empire that it is today.
Beautiful, just such a great story.
It's kind of amazing and how it's taken to another Like you know, when we were on the TV show, it was just so surreal because it was you know, people would stop us and you really couldn't go anywhere, and constant pictures and even at work, i mean lines for hours to get into the store. And it was just surreal because okay, my brother makes these amazing cakes.
Because we me and the sisters kind of just ran the front and you know, the brother in laws and all the workers because everyone's like family that works here, so everyone in the back working and we were running the front and it was just like crazy and it's like, okay, you want to take a picture or like sign autographs
because my brother makes these amazing cakes. It was it was just like so surreal, and our kids were younger and all the other kids, like our nephew and nieces are like our own kids, and it was just crazy. And how it got started with someone had sent a video. My brother used to do these challenges and someone had sent a video in and said, oh, I wanted a
TV show and he happened to be on it. And they're like, well we want we don't want you, We want him because he had such you know, personality, and that's kind of how it was.
As my son calls it riz.
Exactly, you know, and that's that's really how it all happens. And then undercover people used to come in and watch us. And he came to us and he's like, oh, we're gonna do a TV show. I go us like why, He's like, you girls, you guys are crazy. I'm like we're crazy. I'm like we're just like family, like this is us and people are interested and it was just easy and how interested people were on our lives and it just blew up and it was just an amazing ride. It was just great.
So tell us a little bit about some of these disagreements they come up, right, I mean, it's always going to come up in the kitchen and something's going to happen.
So tell us about one that is very memorable, memorable.
What can I tell you about? Well, I want since you tell one.
Okay, So I work full time now at the bakery myself. I graduated college last year, said, I'm here full time and I work in the stores.
I mean a lot of.
Our family arguments didn't make it to the TV screen.
You didn't get to see them. Yeah, we fight hard, but we love hard.
By my most probably the most memorable one I would have to say was probably with me when I was very young.
I was always I was always a buster.
I was always in the back trying to mix things up and keep everyone on their toes.
And I had actually hidden.
Components of this huge bowling cake that they were actually creating, and the camera crew actually had no idea. So everyone's going crazy in the back, like where is this? Like my uncle's screaming at production, are you guys messing with me? And then everyone's yelling at me because they see me in the back laughing, and my uncle Buddy's lines of all the employees and it's like, guys, if you're messing
with me to tell me where it is. When I finally came out and said that it was me that I had them when I had.
Stored them in the back.
But that's just one of the many that have come to mind. All right, So at Carlos, you make cakes, of course, canolas, cookies, pizza. Can you share a couple of personal favorites with us?
Mary, what's your favorite?
I really always say I was born into the right family because I would rather eat cake than food. Honestly, I am a dessert person all in all. I mean, one of my favorite things at the bakery. Honestly and truly, I have to say, I do like we make amazing like chocolate chip cookies, and like all different ones. I like the sugar ones. I like the Naker doodle. I'm a big cookie person. I love our chocolate dip strawberries. Those are excellent. I mean I love our lobster tails.
I mean the canolis. I mean I like them, but I'm not like that's not one thing that I'm going to go for. So I love our cake slices, like now we're just making a new one. Cookies and cream. I think that one's great. I mean, I like the strawberry shortcake one. I just kind of move on from one thing to the next because there's such a big variety. I love our pockets. We make these pockets. I like the crembroulet or the hazel nut. The apple one would be my least favorite, but you know those are the
other things. You know, when I go in, I'll either grab an egg sandwich first, or just like a plain croissant or a choco croissant, I mean Danish. There's so many things. But honestly, I can tell you without fail. I can tell you that I eat at least four different desserts today. And I'm not even kidding, not even kidding. And now when we're done here, swear to God, I'm going for cake tasting because we have a whole new line of cakes and we're doing all cake tasting and
now they're setting it up for me. I'm gonna taste like twelve different desserts.
And that's the well, No, it's the joy of what I do too.
With my coffee companies. I get to through the coffee tastings and I love that part.
Let me ask you that here's a technical question, right, I want to know how you solve the shelf life issue, the refrigeration issue when you're shipping across the country.
So a lot of a lot of our stuff. We have a great partnership with Dawn Foods. They store and distribute a lot of our food for us. We produce everything here at our factory here in Jersey City, at our warehouse. This is where all of our offices are based. And then they kind of store and help and then our stores purchase this stuff directly from Dawn Foods.
Are they in Jersey City?
They have?
Dawn Foods is a major corporation. They have warehouses and stuff all over the country.
Okay, so it stays, they stay, it stays fresh. They what they flash freeze it or something, and then they ship it.
When they need to factory, everything is instantly flash frozen. We have nitrogen tunnels that basically lead almost throughout our whole entire factory.
These are massive tunnels.
If you ever in your New Jersey you should actually stop by. You would be really amazed as at what goes on in the factory. But my brother just passed by. He was waving to us.
Yes, so hard to come up.
That was our biggest issue with scaling was was making sure that we were able to preserve our freshness and.
Getting yeah, huge issue, huge.
Yeah, it's just amazing the factory and and and we make that's coming out soon too, a delicious pizza. It's a frozen pizza, but if you ever tasted it, it's it doesn't even taste like frozen. It tastes like fresh, I mean pizza. It's just it's just out of this world. We just got this pizza thing that like from Italy, and the guys were here for months from Italy, like some selling guys setting it up. They were wonderful. It's just amazing. Wow, Like everything that we do is kind
of like kind of top notch. And I'm not just saying this because I'm part of the family.
Yeah, no, I know.
I can hear it in your voice. You're proud of it. Top quality products, top quality and you're proud of it. I can hear that. Yeah, that's the way I am with my company. Only the best, only the best. Any plans to expand the offerings or introduce new creations at the.
Big we're just working on a whole new line of different cakes, different flavors in different things. So we're going to get that, Like I said, we have a new pizza that's coming out, and again it's phenomenal. I'm gonna you know what, you have to send your address and I'm going to ship them to you. Honestly when when and I'm going to ship you And then you tell me.
Okay, what is the apps? And I think I already know.
But what's the absolute best part about being in a bakery where it's all family? I mean this, this this question answers itself.
Whether our kids are like my best friends and brother and sisters. We all work here together, like side by side. My direct boss is my aunt Mary's other sister, my Grace, and we are our marketing, our social media team. We have our cousin Emily, who helped us set up this computer. We have from everybody, there's a family member in every department.
There's a family member in every department. There's at least ten or fifteen of us here.
And even if we do disagree, which we do like like, well, we get over very quickly. There's no point in holding a grudge, like we say we have to do, and we definitely move on. I mean, you know, but we for the most part, like we really do get along, like on the weekends we're at each other's house. Is like we go on vacation together. We all together all the time, like honestly and truly, like where.
We all live five minutes away from me, we really do.
We live in the same town. We like, we eat together, we hang out together, we do everything together. My husband will be like, let me guess you're on the phone with your sister, or like, don't be jealous, you know.
I want to know. That's what I'm I don't know when the cameras are off.
His buddy's still really the boss or you get the boss him around a little bit.
Listen, Buddy, Buddy right now is definitely the leader, like you know, but I wouldn't want to be Buddy. Buddy has to be in charge of all of this. Like I couldn't do what Buddy does. But like, okay, perfect example, my daughter is I have twins, and my both twins are in college. They're juniors. So I just said to Buddy, like, Buddy, you know he has an extra car or so so I'm like, Buddy, my daughter's coming home from college, Like
I need one of your cars. He's like, no problem, I'll just like one car was given back eye drive stick. He's like, just call up Nikki show like extend the least, Like whatever you want from Buddy, like he just does. Like Buddy's very accommodating. Buddy's not like whatever anyone from the family needs from Buddy, it's done. Like like whatever you want, you get from Buddy. Buddy's like a very soft guy like Buddy, like you know, it's sometimes he seems like he's hard, but he's very but he's a
good hearted guy. He would do anything even for anybody, Like Buddy's a good guy. Like he's not listen, if Buddy has to be like firm, of course he has to be firm, but he would do anything for anyone. He's a good hearted guy. He's the leader of the family, yes, but he he's would do anything for you too.
He's the boss.
He's the boss hey when it is when it comes to being here, he is.
He's very hands on with the business side.
But my aunts have that creative input and that outlet in the stores. There's nobody who's done the amount of working at the counter from when they were twelve years old to this day. Behind it, there's nobody who knows more about what the consumer wants, yes and needs than my aunts when we ran the fun he ran the back for years. My aunts there, they do the showcase designs. They do so much of the stuff inside of the stores.
It's actually it's quite remarkable. And again without really a formal education from growing up, from just being in the bakery from a young age, my aunts can walk into a bakery and immediately take that shirt down, move that pan over there, you know, put it sideways happily.
On a pan.
Right. It's not about that. It's about just getting up in the morning and grinding every day, you know. That's what it's about.
His wife is here in the building. She works here in the business. So so everyone in the family has a part of the building, like me and my sisters. My one sister is here full time and she's strictly business. She's that's his boss.
Me and his.
Mom and my other sister. We're more playful, we're definitely more playful. We stop in and like, we're like more joyful. We'll like, oh, good morning, We'll come in and just really hang out. But we run the Hoboken Dekery. So the three of us together will stop it and Hoboken and it's just more much of a joyful, pleasant experience where we go in, you know, hang out with the fans and you know, like just run the business and it's like not as stressful.
And how many how many bakeries.
Are there we have in total? Right now?
We have a couple of different yeah, a couple of different concepts within that, Like we have a Buddy's Boardwalk Empire thrown in there. So they're all Corlo's bakery concepts. We have them scattered across the.
Country and some of them have like restaurant like you know with them, there's food there really and bakery. Yeah, and we have a great pizzeria concept too in Las Vegas. It's called Pizza Cake and the pizza is very good. And Buddy and Lisa have a restaurant Buddy vs. That does phenomenal in Las Vegas. It's called Buddy VI's. It's excellent, the food is very good.
And what was the timeframe?
So you had the one bakery, but then you expanded into the second one? How long did it take to build out seven? And they're not franchise, they're all owned and operated, right, They're.
All owned and they're all owned and operated by my team actually work in retail question and so we run we run all the different locations. It's me and three of the best girls in this company that have been for so many years us we run the separate location.
So from start our first location, it was opened solely.
Up until twenty sixteen, we had one location and now and then we quickly expanded across like New Jersey and then through a couple of different states.
But as of more recently.
We've been we've been a little bit less on the retail side and more focusing on the e commerce side of the business. But everyone always says, you know, retail is not the same it's not the same environment. So a lot of it's been shifting in my uncle, that's where he kind of steps in and being the innovator of this place and kind of keeping us ahead.
Of that curve. And that's where we're kind of on now.
We're working with so many different retail partners getting our product into different retail store So that's been the new mission.
Nice retail is tough, that's tough sledding in it.
You know, the margins are really like very thin there.
Yeah, but you gotta do. Yes, they change, they change a lot, right.
Yeah, change, especially as a lot of people don't realize we still we use real eggs, we use real milk, we use is real butter we use.
People are like, oh, like the prices of stuff have really.
Gone up, and from our side, you really see what you were paying just last month to this month.
I know, we just got a price hicle on the Arabica beans and it added so much cost. All right, listen now on to Gilmore Girls. If you were just if you were designing a cake inspired by Gilmore Girls, what would it look like?
I mean, it would have to have your diner like somewhere on that. I mean it would have to have.
I would have to focus. I would I would have to put pull ink on there. He would have to be on there. I would have to I would have to incorate Luke's cheeseburger somewhere on that cake.
We would have to have like, you know, Laura someone and Laura and Rory.
We'd have to incorporate some of our old school Hertford have a little bit of you know, Emily and Richard's house incorporated into their somewhere.
There's so many different things that we would have to incorporate you there.
All right, So if you're baking just for Laurel and Rory, okay, what would you serve them?
Cool? See?
Now, I have always been a fan, and it's hysterical. The the blueberry shortcake. That's one of my one of my favorite recipes from the show that I've actually created myself, and I've actually done it.
But I think Rory.
I remember Rory always loved Suky's chocolate fldge cake, so I think and that's our that's our famous We're famous for our chocolate fledge cake. So I would have to do a chocolate fudge cake for the both of them.
Right right, okay, all right, listen. Luke Steiner, as you know, might not be a bakery. But if Luke added one dessert to the menu, what should it be?
Would it be the grayson Berry?
The great I would say the grayson Berry.
So that's like a blueberry like sponge, so it's kind of like a blueberry muffin on the box them. And then it has like a lemon moose, but it's not like lemone. It doesn't have like a really strong lemony flavor, and it's lemony moose. And then it has fresh blueberries on time. Just to know.
In the development of that recipe, we must have taste tested over one hundred different recipes. The lemon flavoring correctly, it's not too much.
Yeah, yeah, I know it takes a lot.
It's the perfect amount of lemon. It's not overpowering, right right.
Here's the question, though, if you were to come into Luke Steiner, what would you order and where would you sit?
Okay, so I would have to order the cheeseburger, Yeah, I was gonna say, And I like, what table would I sit at?
Probably the circular one that's not commonly on the show, but that one that's up by the front door near.
The Yeah, yeah, by the window. It's sit for me.
That's the best.
That's the best seat in the house.
That view of the park right there not and there's a little street there in front of it.
They get the park. Yeah, Mary, what about you?
I went one of the cheeseburger too. I was thinking that before he said it, and I would probably sit at the same table because I would want to be Yeah, I would want to be eat him with him, Mike.
It's close to yeah.
Oh my goodness, I wish we had more time I could talk to you too forever.
You got to come back.
Okay, First of all, please commit to coming back to the show. We have more to talk about, Buddy, Mary, so great to talk to you, and uh listen, We'll do this again. Thanks for all the downloads everybody, and remember where you lead, we will follow.
Stay safe.
Augusta dotcat.
Hey everybody, and don't forget.
Follow us on Instagram at I Am All In podcast and email us at Gilmore at iHeartRadio dot com.