By Jane Keller Gordon, Contributing Writer
Shrewsbury – Alice Lombardi is the owner of the award-winning Bean Counter Bakery, located at 288 Boston Turnpike (Route 9 East), Shrewsbury, and its original location, 113 Highland St., Worcester. She also owns Café Noir, located at 307 Grafton St., Shrewsbury.
“I tell my customers, ‘If you can’t buy it from me, make it yourself.’ We bake all of our cakes, cupcakes, cookies, tarts, pies, pastries and desserts from scratch using fresh, all-natural ingredients, and no preservatives,” she said.
The story of the bakery’s founding is truly remarkable.
Lombardi, an industrial engineer turned baker, was born in Taiwan. Fearing the political situation and lack of academic options for his children, her father brought the family to Queens, N.Y., when Lombardi was 7 years old.
While both her parents worked, her grandmother Shu took care of Lombardi, her two sisters, and her brother.
“My grandmother used to watch the Galloping Gourmet on television. She couldn’t understand a word that Graham Kerr said, but would copy the western-style recipes using Chinese ingredients. She wasn’t a baker, but she became one,” Lombardi recalled.
All four siblings graduated from top-notch colleges, including Lombardi, who earned a degree in industrial engineering from Columbia University. There she met her husband Domenico (Dom), an electrical engineer.
“Dom got a job in Worcester, which was supposed to be a two-year stint. I worked for a medical device manufacturer, and then became a consultant,” Lombardi said.
Everything changed when her children, Domenico (24) and Marianna (23) were born, and Lombardi became a stay-at-home mom.
“Back then I loved to entertain, and would host big meals with a mix of Chinese food from my side, and Italian from my husband’s side. But I really wasn’t a baker,” she said.
Lombardi found her muse through reruns of another cooking show, Julia Child’s “The French Chef.” Like her grandmother, Lombardi worked hard to replicate and perfect the recipes.
“It became therapeutic for me. The way the ingredients reacted and came together was like a miracle,” she commented. Lombardi saw baking as a challenge of precision, order, and quality.
Not long after, her husband built a commercial kitchen in their basement.
“I am a strict rules person. I got my residential, commercial license, and followed every food safety protocol,” said Lombardi.
With the help of other moms, she went into production and started selling her desserts to area restaurants.
By 2001, she needed more space. One of her customers, the Bean Counter, was up for sale, and the rest is baking history.
Lombardi took over the 1,300-square-foot space, and added a new commercial baking facility. She credits Barbara Houle, former food editor for the Worcester Telegram and Gazette, for putting her on the map by writing a feature on her Strawberry Snowflake cake, named after a bakery in Syracuse, N.Y., where her husband grew up.
Eighteen years later, Lombardi oversees a staff of 40, including 10 full-time pastry chefs, decorators and bakers. She still meets with every couple looking for a wedding cake, parents shopping for a bar or bat mitzvah cake, and others in the market for custom orders.
In addition, the bakery offers a large variety of gluten-free options including cakes, cupcakes, cookies, tarts, bars, pies, brownies; vegan cakes, cookies and cupcakes; and gluten-free/vegan cake and cupcakes.
The bakery has won the prestigious Best of the Knot and Couples’ Choice WeddingWire awards every year since 2010 for their wedding cakes.
For Lombardi, it is all about quality, not fame. She has been approached to participate in every cooking television show there is.
She has made it clear, she said, that “I’m not interested in fame. I’m focused on making our customer happy by offering comfort food in the form of fine cakes and desserts.”
The bakery is open Sunday through Thursday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.; and Friday and Saturday 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.
For more information call 508-754-0505 or visit www.beancounterbakery.com.