Orwasher's bakery

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Orwasher's Bakery is a famous breadmaking business in New York that has been listed among the top ten bakeries in America^[1]. Also known as A. Orwasher Handmade Bread Inc. it was established in 1916 on 78th Street in the Yorkville area of the New York City borough of Manhattan and it is now one of last vestiges of the thriving immigrant population that lived in that area at the turn of the century.

A Hungarian immigrant himself, Abraham Orwasher opened the store in 1916, and lived in a small apartment in the back. In the basement was a coal fired brick oven, where Orwasher, with a small staff, baked eastern European / Jewish style loaves of pumpernickel, rye bread, challah, and small rolls. It soon became a thriving wholesale business with deliveries being made by horse and buggy. Abraham's son Louis would go on to take over the business from his father, owning the building the bakery was housed in. Louis would go on to perfect the formulas of his father, while reinventing the breads sold. It is claimed that it was Louis who invented Raisin Pumpernickel bread, at Orwashers, during World War II.

Abram Orwasher, Louis's son, later took over the business, using the same brick ovens and sourdough starter that was used in 1916. In 2007, Mr. Orwasher sold the bakery to Keith Cohen, who stated plans to expand the bakery's offerings beyond Eastern European breads, adding artisanal breads from Italy, France, Ireland and the United States.^[2]