SWAMPSCOTT — Swampscott has had to say goodbye to a community mainstay.
Newman’s Bakery, which held its spot at 252 Humphrey Street for nearly 55 years, shuttered its doors for good two months ago, leaving residents mournful at the loss of a gathering place they say welcomed all walks of life.
“There were all kinds of people,” said longtime Newman family friend, Attorney William DiMento. “If you ran for office, you had to stop in there. It didn’t matter if you were running for Congress or a local selectmen (seat). Newman’s was the place you had to be on a Saturday or Sunday morning because the line was out the door.”
Original owners Bertha and Joe Newman opened the bakery shortly after moving to Swampscott from Malden with their four young children in 1966.
A family affair from day one, the couple and their children spent countless hours at the business, making friends with every member of the community that walked through the bakery’s double glass doors.
“It became a place where I would stop by in the morning,” DiMento said. “They didn’t have tables, so you’d stand there and talk and shoot the bull, and Mr. Newman, who was a 6-foot-3, 250-pound bear of a man would say ‘come here, I want to talk to you,’ and I’d watch him make the bagels and we’d talk.”
In the more than four decades Bertha and Joe spent as owners, daughter Deborah Newman said the pair managed to leave a lasting imprint on their hundreds of loyal customers.
“I can’t help but talk about how charismatic my father was,” Deborah Newman said. “He was in his 40s when he bought the bakery. In those days, that was old to be starting a new career, but my father would be working, weaving his way around all these people who were in the back, having coffee and a bagel and yakking.”
She later added: “He’s the reason the bakery became a … community gathering place. He was such a selfless, generous person, and he didn’t have a self-conscious bone in his body.”
Continuing their parents’ legacy, Newman’s was taken over in the early 2000s by Deborah’s siblings, Jessica and Bernard Newman.
After closing for 11 months in 2018 following a long bout of bad luck, during which both Jessica and Bernard suffered health issues, a car accident damaged the front of the store, and issues with the bakery’s ovens were discovered, Newman’s reopened again in January 2019.
“To find out how much people actually care about you. It means so much,” Bernard Newman told the Swampscott Reporter of the warm welcome he and his sister received upon their return in 2019. “Finally, we were able to [reopen]. It’s like being in a new world and coming back to your home where all the customers are like long lost friends.”
Ultimately, the strain of running a small business became too much, and the family made the decision to close the bakery permanently early this year.
With every story’s end comes a new beginning however, and Swampscott residents can take comfort in the fact that the legacy of Newman’s Bakery lives on in daughter Deborah, who opened a deli of her own on Humphrey Street Sept. 9.
Aptly-named The Baker’s Daughter, the younger Newman sibling’s new vegetarian-friendly place offers customers something different from the classic feel of Newman’s Bakery, but DiMento still attests to Deborah’s inherited culinary talents.
“She’s a hell of a baker, and she’ll do great in that new location,” he said.
Although Newman’s popular bagels aren’t yet on the menu, visitors to The Baker’s Daughter will still see some familiar treats, including Deborah’s version of her parents’ raspberry rugelach– a favorite Newman’s menu item of DiMento’s.
“I say I’m a baker by osmosis,” Deborah said. “I learned everything about the baking business just by watching (my parents).”
Elyse Carmosino can be reached at [email protected].
