Seated on a stool in the backroom kitchen of Malek’s Bakery, head baker Tom Quinn’s hands move with rapid precision, interlacing strands of dough to form loaf after loaf of challah.
“Should I do it blindfolded?” he asks as a reporter looks on, drawing laughter from two others prepping bread at the table.
The space is cramped. And today, there is added congestion and commotion as repairmen work to assess a problem with the oven.
This bakery on Monroe Avenue in Brighton has existed as Malek’s for more than a half-century, and under a different name before that. The slicers date to the 1950s, operators say. The serial number on the oven is 2. And when the oven breaks, food prep has to relocate to one of the town synagogues so the challah and other staples are ready for Shabbat.
Malek’s is the only kosher bakery left in the Rochester area. Just like Lipman’s, a few doors down, is the area’s only kosher meat market.
Both are pillars of the Jewish community. And plans are moving ahead to bring the businesses under one roof near Twelve Corners, creating a “Jewish food hub,” of sorts, offering cooking classes and culinary lectures, a small market or grocery, a cultural component, an outdoor pocket park dedicated to Holocaust survivors and, of course, updated facilities and more room to move around.
The new location is a single-story, former medical building with a blue awning at 885 S. Winton Road, a five-minute walk from Malek’s. Location was “everything,” said Naftali Hanau, who with his wife, Anna, recently bought and now operate the two shops.
“The kosher-keeping community is centered on the Monroe Avenue corridor,” he said. “We have four synagogues, basically, between Twelve Corners and Culver. … So we have to be where people can easily get to, where they can walk, or where they can send their kids to pick something up. Or it won't work.”
'The community needs this’
In today’s era of increasing health consciousness and demand for food transparency, the market for kosher food is expanding nationally and around the world. At Malek’s, the customer mix is majority non-Jewish at times, toward the beginning of the week. But that market growth overall is largely being captured by major food labels like Manischewitz, Empire Kosher, and Nestlé U.S.
Malek’s and Lipman’s, meanwhile, are struggling — despite Greater Rochester having the largest Jewish population in the state outside of New York City, and Brighton being the center of that community.
“There are many ways in which we operate at a loss,” said Hanau, who grew up coming to these shops. “We’re trying to build these businesses together, because the community needs this. But it's not actually viable to operate this way.”
The proposal for the new, combined market is set for a public hearing before the Town Board later this month. Among those lining up behind the proposal are the Farash Foundation, The Jewish Federation of Greater Rochester and a host of area rabbis.
“For a vibrant Jewish community, it's really essential to have certain things, and one of those primary ones is kosher businesses,” said Rabbi Peter Stein of Temple B’rith Kodesh.
Stein joined seven other rabbis, representing every synagogue in and adjacent to Brighton, signing onto a letter of support sent to town Supervisor Bill Moehle. In the letter, they also note the importance of Hillel Community Day School, writing that without these institutions, “at a minimum, Rochester becomes a non-starter as a destination for any observant individual being recruited to our city.”
There was a time when the area’s thriving Jewish community supported many butcher shops, bakeries and other businesses along and around Joseph Avenue in the city. But over recent decades, the population shifted to the suburbs and declined in number.
“So sure, the Jewish community of Rochester has changed over the years. The numbers have changed, the religious practices have changed,” Stein said, though adding that his congregation is growing in number from kids to adults. “But one of the reasons why there's been this advocacy effort is there's a real need to maintain the strength of our community. And this is a piece of that.”
'Nothing more powerful’
Before operating Malek’s and Lipman’s, the Hanaus lived for two decades in Brooklyn, where they founded and ran a kosher meat company, Grow & Behold Foods. So they arrived understanding the flow of the holidays, Anna Hanau said, “and just all of the ways that food is a part of the community rhythms.”
“And so when we decided we were going to take a break from New York City, try Rochester,” she said, “it was just a really good fit, because this is what we do. We feed people.”
As she and Quinn worked in Malek’s backroom on a recent weekday, customers came in and out, scanning the display cases filled with cookies and fruit pastries, muffins, knish, babkas and more breads.
“In the bakery, we make the vast majority of the products in house. That's not something that really needs, or you want, to change,” Naf Hanau said.
“People are very attached to the way things have been,” Anna Hanau added. “This is the birthday cake I have for this event, you know? So we like to tell people that we're only changing the things they don't like.”
Not to say there haven’t been changes.
They have introduced new products, more catering and platters and shiva events, added online pickup and delivery options. These businesses, though, are in old spaces that likely were inadequate from the beginning, set up for what Naf Hanau described as “a very old-school model of operation.”
Each has only four parking spaces. And all those display cases require staffers to hand the item to the customer, as there is no room to shelve prepackaged items or prepared foods. All that would change with the new building.
But tradition is important. In the new, combined market, Anna Hanau said, they plan to create a historical display about Jewish food history in the area.
“It's important to us to link,” she said. “Yes, it's a new location, so it's a shift. But link it to, you know, what's come before, and that this is a tradition of culture in Jewish Rochester, and Rochester in general.”
Rabbi Stein sees the connection, and the opportunity, more broadly.
“There's nothing more powerful than breaking bread together,” he said. “And if we have these kinds of facilities, it's an opportunity for not only the Jewish community to have its needs met, but also to be a cultural center bringing together different people of different identities … sharing food, the culture and traditions behind the food.”
So much wrapped up in two little shops, that soon could become one.
“I didn't grow up here, but coming back, it really feels like we've been entrusted with, you know, we're not rabbis, but this is a pillar of the community,” Anna Hanau said, where people turn at different milestones, whether it is for shiva, brises, baby namings. “So, you know, it has to work for our family, but it is very much in service of the community and all of the rhythms of life.”
