sanremo delivery

One of Toronto's favourite bakeries is reopening and doing delivery for the first time

After temporarily closing about a month ago, popular Italian bakery SanRemo is planning to reopen very soon.

After initially removing their dine-in area, the bakery decided to temporarily close on March 22. But on April 10, they posted to social media indicating they would soon be starting delivery and curbside pickup.

"When we closed we had no idea how long social distancing was going to last," says Rob Bozzo of SanRemo. "We still have no idea, but we think it's clear that restaurants and bakeries will continue to operate in a 'social distancing' capacity for the next couple of months. So we have been planning how to re-open in a safe way."

SanRemo has never done delivery before in their 50-plus year history "so changing our 51 year old business that thrived on walk-ins to a completely different format has been very time-consuming," says Bozzo.

Apparently items available for delivery and pickup will include bread, cake, milk, deli products, ready-to-cook pizzas, frozen meals, merch, custom cakes and much more. Although their famous pastries will be available to order, customers shouldn't be treating this like an Uber order from their local donut shop.

"We are strongly discouraging people only ordering just pastries or donuts and hope people take advantage of the groceries, prepared and frozen food that we are offering," says Bozzo.

Their delivery and curbside pickup service should be launching on April 25. The minimum order is $50 with a $10 delivery fee, with free delivery over $100.

Either way, it should be cheaper than your average app. "We considered many apps, Ritual, Uber Eats, Doordash, etc.," says Bozzo. "The sad reality is that they just charge too much. We would have to increase the cost of our products significantly, and that is not a cost we want to pass onto our customers."

The minimum for curbside pickup is $25, and curbside customers can also order coffee.

"All orders are to be placed online through our website," says Bozzo. "We expect the website to go live on Friday, April 24th. We are waiting on the go-ahead from our website developer.  We offer a lot of products so we had to streamline as best as we could, and put minimum order amounts and maximum for some products."

Bozzo suggests that customers pool orders with family, friends or neighbours, and notes that SanRemo staff will not be entering lobbies or buildings.

"We took the time to plan out a new system where our business can continue safely, so we have jobs and support our families, so we can hire back some of our employees, and so we can provide to the community as there has been a demand," says Bozzo. 

"We also want to continue donating to essential workers and we can only do that if our business is operating."

Lead photo by

SanRemo


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