Corporate clients like The Paragon Supper Club, Christopher’s Restaurant in Kettering and C’est Tout Bistro in Oakwood order breads and dinner rolls from the bakery.
Belmont Bakery owners Frank and Debbie Cetone also make specialty cakes for occasions like weddings, birthdays, graduations and anniversaries.
What makes the business stand out: The Belmont Bakery has a reputation for their cream-filled horns and Danish rolls. New items, like the small pocket pies now on display, are periodically introduced, but only kept in the line-up if there is a good response from customers.
“We’re probably the last bakery around that makes cakes from scratch,” said Frank Cetone.
The Cetones also carry on a long tradition of making ethnic specialty items during holiday periods. Some of the items include braided Challah bread, prune-filled lekvar, Hungarian crescents filled with nut and apricot fillings and German anise-flavored Springerle for the Christmas season.
How the business started: Frank Cetone was introduced to the bakery business by his wife Debbie. The couple met and married while working at a bank.
Debbie’s father now-deceased, Ed Druga, grew up in Pittsburgh where he sold pies for a bakery before becoming the baker. He and Debbie’s mother, Maryann, who is also deceased, eventually owned a bakery, but when it was destroyed by fire, they decided to move to Dayton. Druga worked as a baker for Belmont Bakery and Catering in Belmont until buying the Belmont Bakery side of the business about 40 years ago. In 1997, he moved the bakery down the road to the Kettering location, but kept the Belmont name.
In addition to working in the bank full-time, Frank Cetone began helping his father-in-law on Saturdays in 1978. He quickly left his banker’s hours behind and adopted baker’s hours that start at 3:30 a.m. Debbie continues to work full-time in finance, but helps out in the bakery on Saturdays.
Customer comment: "The quality of their product is excellent," said Donald Francis, who has shopped at the bakery for more than 50 years. "I primarily like the Danish rolls, the crumb cakes and the pound cakes. I feel like family when I go in there…they call me by my name."
Contact information: The Belmont Bakery is open 9 a.m.–3 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday. Phone is (937) 297-6771. The address is 3021 Wilmington Pike, Kettering.
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