Home Sweet Home: Gambino’s Locations Over the Last 75 Years

As part of our 75th anniversary, we’re digging through the archives to find everything we can about our history. In the process, we’re learning things even we had lost to time! Today, we’re looking at all of the locations that Joe Gambino’s Bakery has occupied in Louisiana since its founding in 1949. We wanted to see where we’ve been, as well as find out what occupies some of those spaces today.

It’s like a Joe Gambino’s Bakery scavenger hunt! And our adventure begins in an unlikely place.

We were surprised to discover that our first, relatively brief location, was at 3911 Baronne Street in the Touro/Uptown neighborhood. 

Today, the space is sandwiched between a frame shop and a record shop, across the street from Zee’s Pizzeria and about a block from Martin’s wine store.

It appears to be a residential space these days.

Before the Baronne Street location became Gambino’s, it had a variety of uses, including one of 20 local A&Ps, part of a massive national grocery store chain.

Next, and until it became the flagship Joe Gambino’s Bakery, 3911 Baronne Street was home to the popular Hartman’s Bakery, which was closed by the city — just months before we took over — as part of a series of sanitation-related shutterings by the city’s health department.

By 1952 — and possibly as early as 1950 — Joe Gambino’s Bakery moved to 3609 Toledano Street in the Hoffman Triangle neighborhood. This would be our main home for nearly five decades.

Interestingly, Joe Gambino’s Bakery appeared to go through a brief rebranding effort. In this article, we called ourselves, “Mrs. Charles Ledner Caterer,” an homage to Beulah Ledner (the wife of Charles Ledner), the woman from whom Joe Gambino purchased the bakery.

If certain aspects of the ad seem curious to you, we talk exactly about that in this recent post about how job postings reflect the society in which they exist. Our postings, like the postings of many businesses, changed quite a bit over the years.

Today, our former main location — home for decades — is part of a small strip mall on Toledano Street.

Eventually Joe Gambino’s Bakery hit its stride. Things were going so well that it was time to open a second location!

That second location opened in 1972, at 4821 Veterans Boulevard. If that address sounds familiar, it’s because it’s still a Joe Gambino’s Bakery today — our main branch these days!

But we weren’t done expanding yet. Far from it!

By 1985, we had a third location in Gretna. Here’s an ad that shows off our three storefronts at the time, as well as a pair of our most well-known slogans: “Treat yourself!” and “Where Good Things Come From.”

Who knows? Maybe it’s time to bring some of our old slogans back!

Today, our old Gretna bakery at 312 Lapalco Boulevard, is Pawn Depot. But, if pawn shops aren’t your thing, Sultan’s Shawarma Shack is just a few doors down, and is delicious!

It was around this time that Joe Gambino’s Bakery had a real explosion of activity. Sam Scelfo was now president, and as part of our expansion, we opened our first Baton Rouge location.

The bakery was in the Connell’s Village shopping center and a grand opening was held on June 28 and 29, 1986. 

Today, that location is home to a Conn’s Home Plus furniture store, and it’s less than a mile away from our current Baton Rouge location.

Gambino’s opened its next New Orleans location at the end of 1988 with another huge grand opening celebration.

An article from before the event heralded the opening of Gambino’s as “a sweet break from shopping” in the Uptown Square shopping center on Broadway Avenue. The Gambino’s address was 200 Broadway Street, Suite #130, part of a European-style shopping mall that was very popular in its time.

In a pre-opening giveaway, Gambino’s was raffling off prizes like a wedding case to serve 150 people, and a weekend getaway to Gulf Shores.

Uptown Square is still there today, but the businesses located inside are far different. Much of the storefronts today are used as offices by Tulane University, and some of the Square was demolished to make room for a retirement home. The popular Crescent City Farmers Market sets up on Tuesday mornings in the Square’s parking lot.

By 1989, a second Baton Rouge location opened up at 8342 Perkins Road, Suite C, across town from the first.

In a February 5 Advocate article from that year, bakery manager Pat Dansky said king cake sales had doubled from the previous year. The more-than-34,000 king cakes Dansky reported making for the Baton Rouge location is far less than what Gambino’s makes today, but still impressive for the time. King cake mania had begun!

Today, that second Joe Gambino’s Bakery location in Baton Rouge is a nail salon attached to an Asian market.

Later that year, Gambino’s announced another New Orleans store — this time in New Orleans East at The Lake Forest Plaza, a mall on Read Boulevard off of I-10.

Gambino’s was in space 21, sandwiched between a Dillard’s and a women’s apparel shop called Ups & Downs.

The Plaza, as it was often called, was torn down in 2007, but this excerpt from a Times-Picayune article in 2021 shows how important it was to New Orleans East residents.

“For the better part of two decades, while it was in its heyday, the Plaza was more than a mall. Standing at the intersection of Read Boulevard and I-10, it was for countless New Orleans East residents a de facto town square — a community center, a date-night destination, a workplace, an emergency baby-sitter, and a place just to pass the time, all wrapped up in one.”

It was an incredible time for Joe Gambino’s bakery, with stores all over New Orleans, as well as in Baton Rouge.

The Uptown Square location was a hub of activity, hosting formal English-style high teas, and even growing into our first restaurant, “Cafe Gambino.”

Simultaneously, however, Gambino’s headquarters at the old Toledano location — in service for four decades — was forced to fight for its survival through no fault of its own.

Nearby street construction by the City of New Orleans lasted far longer than it was supposed to, inhibiting traffic and customers from reaching the store. Furthermore, the construction on the street resulted in damage to the Toledano building itself.

It was a challenge keeping the Toledano location in business.

The Toledano location did fortunately reopen, but more and more of our business was shifting out of New Orleans and to our Jefferson Parish location on Veterans Avenue.

Uptown Square as a whole was struggling, and — like many of the businesses in the European-style plaza — Gambino’s decided to close shop there.

In 1999, an issue with the renewal of our lease forced us to move our New Orleans location from Toledano Street to a temporary location at 3420 S. Carrollton Avenue. Today that S. Carrollton location is either occupied by a U.S. postal service office, or was knocked down and made a parking lot adjacent to the post office.

The plan was to relocate operations from temporary S. Carrollton location to a 4,820-square-foot bakery at 3836-40 Canal St., on a vacant lot across from the Jacob Schoen & Son Funeral Home. But an intense debate among Mid-City residents — that was so rich it deserves its own blog post — stopped that move from taking place.

Hurricane Katrina and the recovery after was difficult for many area businesses. Fortunately, we were able to emerge with our core intact, and have even opened up a few new locations.

Today, we’re serving more of Louisiana than ever before with storefronts at our main Veterans Avenue location, as well as at 8646 Goodwood Boulevard in Baton Rouge, and 3802 Johnston Street, Suite C in Lafayette.

Joe Gambino’s Bakery has called many locations home over the decades, but our business’ mission has remained the same. No matter our location, we’ve been honored to bake for your family’s special occasions for 75 years. We hope you’ll give us the opportunity to do the same for the next 75.