Stock’s Bakery: Bringing 80 Years of Tradition to Port Richmond

A five-generation business located at 2614 E. Lehigh Ave. in Port Richmond, Stock’s Bakery was nearly forced to relocate after a Philadelphia bill banning the use of trans fats by local restaurants threatened to put an end to their livelihood in 2007. “For us it wasn’t just about changing our frying oil,” Kristine Stock, bakery manager and great-granddaughter of Josef Stock, who founded Stock’s as a bread bakery in 1924, explains about the trans fat bill. “It was about changing a recipe that’s 80 years old and in turn changing tradition.”

After collecting over 2,000 signatures in just one weekend and 15,000 signatures total, including signatures on behalf of Isgro’s Pastries and Termini Brothers in South Philly, City Hall passed an amendment to the bill on Oct. 25, 2007 permitting the timeless, Mom & Pop bakeries to continue using trans fats in their recipes. “We weren’t trying to change the world,” Kristine says. “We were just trying to do what we’ve been doing for 80 years.” In the turbulent months leading up to Stock’s victory at City Hall, loyal customers not only signed the petitions, but carried them door to door in the neighborhood collecting signatures from everyone of voting age. “It wasn’t just people in Port Richmond,” Kristine notes. “We had signatures from customers of ours who’ve moved away—addresses in New York, Louisiana, California—people who wanted to do their part to make sure nothing changed.”

Known chiefly for its pound cake, the bakery also offers cookies, donuts, snowflake rolls and other delectables. The bakers at Stock's also bake and decorate wedding and birthday cakes. All goods are baked in a traditional hearth oven, one of only two hearth ovens in the city of Philadelphia. The other, located in Tacconelli’s Pizzeria, is also in Port Richmond. “It’s the baking process that makes our cake the way it is,” Kristine explains.

When the business started in 1924 as a bread bakery, the turmoil of 2007 was completely unimaginable. “But when my grandfather Frank Stock passed away in December, 2002, the last thing he told me was, ‘Don’t let them change us,’” Kristine recalls. “And we didn’t.”

By Meghan Grever, Lydie Miller and Anthony Trivelli