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%u2014 BWW gMglMHIPig) !B*9SSBHH%u00ae^9l8lll1SPlllllHi$BB8HIBBP Vtnp%ifBaking Is a Round theHardwareIs the Means forthe Mazzone FamilyVinnie Mazzone %u201cmans%u201d the counter.(Michael Cuiccio Photos)BY PETER HALEYWith the exception of the near legendary Pintchik%u2019s Paint Store, on Court Street hardware stores have come and gone and are still coming but Mazzone's Hardware at 470 Court Street has been in business for 28 years. Despite this success, owner Vincent Mazzone isn%u2019t exactly sure why.%u201c I don%u2019t know really what the trick is; 28 years ago a small store could make it. Today people are concerned with convenience and expect one store to provide everything they can think of to buy.%u201dSo things change. For the Mazzone%u2019s, changes meant the store moving from a %u2018%u2018half a block away%u201d to its present location 15 years ago, a combined renovation and expansion to the store%u2019s present store tnree and a half years ago, and the struggle to build up a %u201c reasonable%u201d inventory.%u201c If you have 95 percent of what they want but don%u2019t have one item then they say, %u201c Well that guy hasn%u2019t got anything.%u2019 So if it is a reasonable item, we will see to it that it%u2019sordered.%u201dThe %u201c we%u201d , in this case, no longer includes Mazzone s fatner, saivatore, who died 7 years ago, but his mother as well, who works behind the counter at the store.When asked %u201c how%u2019s business?%u201d she responded with a smile, %u201c If you want to talk about the hardware business, then you%u2019re talking about a lot of my life.%u201dBusiness life has picked up since the expansion and renovation, according to Vincent. %u201c It was beneficial to us, and beneficial to the community. At first I thought I was going to go to a psychiatrist, because everyone was telling me I was crazy to buy the adjacent storefront, knock out the wall, and do the whole store over. But when it was all over there was a noticeable increase in business. There were a lot of new faces also who possibly didn%u2019t know this hardware store existed before.%u201dThe merchant cannot separate himself from the community he works in, felt Mazzone, and although his family has moved away from the Court Street area that Vincent grew up in (they lived next door to the present store), he believes you can improve the residential community by improving the commercial community.%u201c Improving the store is a way of putting something back into the community and it can have a big impact on a community. If you have a sloppy store and conduct business in a sloppy fashion then you have a n egative impact, where you couiu, with some effort, have a positive one.%u201dMazzone was in the service and was at one i le %u2019 of opening an autoschool, but h e s ii. business that used to be his father%u2019s and is keeping the name Mazzone on Court Street.Clock Caputo BusinessBY PETER HALEYJust to show the generation gap amongst Caputos, James Caputo started in the bakery business when he was eight, while his son John, the present owner, waited until he reached the hoary age of twelve before whitening his hands with flour.Caputo's Bakery is located at 329 Court Street just across the street from the old bakery whose ovens are still in the ground below the International Loneshoremen%u2019s Association Hospital. Nowadays, it is illegal to build ovens and bake bread underground, so a revolving oven with a l flour conveyor and water mater are used to | turn out Caputo%u2019s 2,000 daily loaves of bread.It%u2019s nearly a 24 hours a day business. 37-year-old John puts his share of time in beginning at 4 a.m. when the fresh bread made during the night before is sorted into orders and loaded onto the delivery trucks, continuing until at least 2 p.m.The business is still very much in the family. John%u2019s grandfather, Vincent, who began to business in 1906 at 551 Hicks Street before moving to Court Street in 1936, stnl ~mes in and scrutinizes the operation, and John's father Jarn^s visits daily to keep his eye on things.It%u2019s a nast nine i. e r ,.uu.L the second generate, ^ of caputo hakeis comes in to look over a ft orders and ace , what was cooking the night before. James says he was %u201c born in the business%u201d .%u201c In those days first you learned how to make bread then you went to school,%u201d hesays sitting behind a work desk just outside the customer area of the store. Those were the days, too, when there was a %u201c bakery on every block.%u201d%u201c Around Hicks and Columbia, in a radius of three blocks, you had several bakeries: Caputo, Terrazo, Alvini, Savino, and three others,%u201d he recalls. In those days the bakery business was booming because for many Italian families bread was a greater portion of meals than it is today.%u201c Every day, families would buy five or six loaves of bread where today they buy one. Today people eat meat more often; then it was harder to do and sometimes lunch or dinner was a few penny Hershey chocolate bars between a loaf of Italian bread,%u201d continues John, speaking about the days when $25 a week just about paid all the bills.Whether this particular business and family tradition will go into its fourth generation is hard to say, because John%u2019s son is 9 and nine-year-olds need not go into the-Caputo business anymore. And if John has his way, his son probably won%u2019t.%u201cIt%u2019s a zough business. One of thosebusinesses where if thtn-'c ^r.erentorders ynr h- ' ' The ~J %u00abrnight I got to the World irauc ^.-uter sciv.,-.or on my way to din..-. '\on th e World when my beeper went off andI had to go back to Court Street.%u201dEven as he groaned, the phone was ringing and John was promptly on phone talkikng to another customer.Freb.. -dd is a hoi commodity at Caputo%u2019s.MovingOctober 5,1978, THE PHOENIX, Page 21j