The changing face of 18th Avenue
John Chu is the manager of H & C Bakery, which has been serving up roast pork buns, ham and egg croissants and the like for the past three years at its location off of 70th Street. When asked how business was, he simply said, “so-so.”
“Before there were lots of pizzerias here and lots of bakeries,” he explained. “Now, it’s lots of 99 cent stores.”
The times they are a changin’, so the song goes and such is the case for the stretch of 18th Avenue in the heart of Bensonhurst. Longtime neighborhood institutions such as Cristoforo Colombo Bakery and Gino’s Focacceria have shut down, owners saying that business just wasn’t the same.