One of Philadelphia’s most beloved and iconic bakeries, Metropolitan Bakery, closed its doors for good on March 15 after 33 years. But the recipes and products live on as they were sold to Germantown baker Pete Merzbacher, owner of Merzbacher’s bakery.

The co-owners of Metropolitan, James Barrett and Wendy Smith Born, still play a role in the transition of the recipes, equipment and even Metropolitan employees who have been hired by Merzbacher’s. According to Merzbacher, “We were able to hire just about every person on their team who wanted to come over.”

“Before Merzbacher’s, these jobs didn’t exist; with Merzbacher’s, that was another 22-23 jobs, and now it’s around 41-42 jobs here,” he added.

Merzbacher said he intends to produce Metropolitan’s same iconic products while keeping Merzbacher’s products distinct.

“I would love for this place to be a sort of bread campus, or baking campus, where the Metropolitan is produced here, and the Merzbacher’s is produced here,” he said. “For this to be a place where some of the best bread in Philadelphia is produced, all under one roof.”

Merzbacher is originally from Massachusetts but moved to Philadelphia after falling in love with the city. The first stop of his professional career was as a line cook at Talula’s Garden, a restaurant in Center City, where his love of bread baking started.

“I’d come in early and learn how to make pasta or stay late after my shifts to study what the chefs were doing,” he said. “And on that self-directed learning journey, I started making bread, and it was really the only thing I did at Talula’s that the chefs thought I had talent in.”

From there, Merzbacher doubled down on bread baking, buying lots of flour from local suppliers and using it to bake an abundance of bread. “I was making so much bread that I had to find places to store it or sell it,” he said. “So friends started buying it, at birthday parties, at events, at whatever it was.”

Merzbacher then created a bread subscription program through which people could buy a month’s worth of bread, and then meet with him to collect it. After that, Merzbacher used the kitchen of a West Philadelphia pizzeria during its closed hours to bake bread that he would sell to local businesses. Some of these businesses included Mariposa Food Co-op, Local 44, Green Line Cafe, and Weavers Way Co-op.

In 2013, Merzbacher opened his own bakery, formerly called Philly Bread, in Olney, where he continued to bake bread until 2020 when he relocated to 4530 Germantown Ave. and rebranded it as Merzbacher’s of Germantown.

“I really wanted to double down on being a community-oriented, liked-minded bakery in Germantown.” Merzbacher said.

While Merzbacher has experienced a plethora of expansion in his professional career, he knew after hearing about the opportunity to purchase the Metropolitan that it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. “This is a pitch that I cannot afford to swing and miss on,” he said. “I am going to lock in and doggedly make this happen.

“I realized pretty quickly that this was not going to be a game of probability, this is going to be a game of calculus. I just need to figure out how to make this happen,” he said.

While the business continues to grow over the next couple of months, Merzbacher would love to hear from locals about their thoughts and feelings concerning the recent expansion.

“I would like to hear from people,” he said. “People in Northwest Philly have been buying Metropolitan bread for 33 years. I want to know if we’re living up to their expectations or if they have ideas for new products or tweaks to existing products.”