Gio’s Pastry Store provides Italian foodstuff tradition to the Upstate with brick and mortar locale

There is a memory Maria Natale has of when she was young, and her father would take her to get a bomboli or sfogliatelle or a further Italian pastry from a coffee store in New Jersey. Even now, a long time later, the 38-yr-outdated will need only bite into just one of people delectable treats and she is transported to her youth and loaded with pleasure.

© Courtesy of Gio’s Pastry Store
Gio’s Pastry Store is now open up in Fountain Inn, serving up Italian and Italian American specialties like Sfogliatelle (clamshells), tiramisu, bomboloni (loaded doughnuts), biscotti, lemon bars and significantly a lot more.

That feeling of, and potentially quest for, delightful nostalgia is what led Natale to open up her have pastry store. Natale, who also is effective fulltime as a health and fitness technician with St. Francis, opened Gio’s Pastry Store at 218 A S. Primary St., in Fountain Inn Jan. 23. The shop is a spouse and children affair, with Natale’s brother, sister, nieces and mother and father all chipping in to support.

Gio’s which is named soon after Natale’s pet dog (there is far more to that tale) is component pastry store and part Italian sector. Visitors will discover Italian specialties from the traditional crammed doughnuts, bomboloni to cannolis, Italian rainbow cookies to tiramisu, Italian breads to classic Italian clamshell cookies, called sfogliatelle.

Get started the day smarter. Get all the information you have to have in your inbox each individual morning.

Among the the marketplace choices are a choice of imported Italian cooking items like sauces, tinned fish, olives, beans and contemporary and frozen pasta.

What else is coming: Italian cafe, dentist, ice product store between 3 new small business openings in Mauldin

Baking for Gio

Natale never ever really established out to be a experienced baker. She always thought herself a lot more of a cook, whipping up savory Italian-tinged dishes for mates and family members. But, in 2017, baking became a necessity. Which is when Natale’s rescue puppy, Giovanni tore his CCL. The diagnosis required surgery that would price tag nearly $5,000.

© Provided
Maria Natale, proprietor of Gio’s Pastry Store in Fountain Inn, with her family on opening weekend.

Though close friends prompt she set up a GoFundMe to aid protect the process, Natale felt unpleasant asking for a thing without giving everything in return, she mentioned. A passionate cook, Natale turned to what she realized, food items, and began offering a couple Specialty Italian cookies and breads as a result of the state’s Cottage Food Law, which enables for manufacturing particular foods products in a household kitchen area.

Within a short time, Natale experienced lifted sufficient cash for Gio’s surgical treatment. She figured she’d stop offering but persons questioned for a lot more.

The reaction equally humbled and intrigued her, and it also planted a seed.

Building a bakery

Inspired by Fountain Inn Chamber of Commerce president, Whitney Ferguson, Natale began offering frequently at the Fountain Inn Farmers Marketplace. She promptly produced a subsequent amongst locals and numerous Northern transplants, who relished her treats that tasted like childhood.

© Courtesy of Gio’s Pastry Shop
Gio’s Pastry Store is a family-operate procedure now open up in Fountain Inn that capabilities a bakery with selfmade Italian and Italian American pastries and a modest industry that carries imported Italian foods objects.

“People notify me you know we moved below from up north and I remember going to these areas with my grandparents, and now my kids have the option to appear with me,” Natale said of food stuff and memory. “That’s what I love about it is it variety of offers them that nostalgia from their childhood and go it on to their children.”

And that’s how the concept for some thing additional grew. The brick and mortar shop has allowed Natale to improve her choices, and, she claimed, to deliver a style of Italian and Italian American culture, her tradition, to the Upstate.

Natale’s mother and father, Ermindo and Elisa Natale immigrated from Abruzzo, Italy and designed a daily life for themselves and for their spouse and children in the United States. Each labored their way up, Natale claimed, her father inevitably opening quite a few Italian meals organizations, and her mom running her possess hair stylist business.

At the heart of every little thing was meals.

© Courtesy of Gio’s Pastry Store
Gio’s Pastry Store is a relatives-run operation now open up in Fountain Inn that specializes in Italian and Italian American specialties like Italian rainbow cookies, Sfogliatelle (clamshells), tiramisu, bomboloni (loaded doughnuts), biscotti, lemon bars and a great deal extra.

Natale figured out to adore to cook dinner with her mother and father directing her. She recalled peeling tomatoes for marinara sauce at the age of 5 and relishing the pleasure and familiarity cooking could carry.

Nowadays, the two Ermindo and Elisa get the job done alongside their daughter, baking and getting ready the treats for Gio’s.

Ideas for the future simply call for incorporating a lot more products, probably even some savory ones, together with extra market products, Natale reported. But for now, she is information to continue being tiny, she claimed.

“I want people today to feel like when they appear into our store, they’re not just yet another encounter, but they are family members to us,” Natale explained. “I do not want it to be these a huge procedure that you eliminate that component.”

Gio’s Pastry Store is now open up at 218 A S. Principal St., Fountain Inn. Hours are 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. – 3 p.m. Sunday. For more pay a visit to https://www.facebook.com/giospastryshop/

Lillia Callum-Penso addresses food stuff for the Greenville News. She enjoys the stories recipes inform and finds inspiration in the folks at the rear of them. When she’s not checking out neighborhood meals, she can be uncovered operating, the two for pleasure and to retain up with her 5-year-aged twins. Achieve her at [email protected], or at 864-478-5872, or on Facebook at facebook.com/lillia.callumpenso.

This short article initially appeared on Greenville Information: Gio’s Pastry Shop brings Italian foodstuff society to the Upstate with brick and mortar area