White Oak Bakery Celebrates New (Old) Home

Patti’s Pasticceria, borough fixture since 2012, reopens in former Feig’s location

By T.J. Martin
The Tube City Almanac
October 16, 2023
Posted in: White Oak News

Patti’s Pasticceria, a fixture on Lincoln Way since 2012, has relocated directly across the street to 1501 Lincoln Way, into a space once occupied by Feig’s Bakery. (Submitted photo via Facebook)

A White Oak bakery has relocated, but patrons don’t have to worry about finding it: it simply moved across the street.

Patti’s Pasticceria, which had been at 1502 Lincoln Way since 2012, has relocated directly across the street to 1501 Lincoln Way, which years ago was the site of Feig’s Bakery.

It’s a homecoming of sorts for Patti Fiasco, founder and namesake of Patti’s Pasticceria. She worked at Feig’s, starting at the counter as a teenager, before moving to the back room to learn more of the trade.

“I always loved to bake,” Fiasco said. “They taught me how to decorate (cakes) here.”

Fiasco remained at Feig’s until she became pregnant with her son, Andrew Macey, then, as she raised her family, continued to bake and sell her baked goods from her home for the next 20 to 25 years.

Andrew Macey, who along with his mother Patti Fiasco owns and operates Patti’s Pasticceria, said that when they originally decided to open a retail store in 2012, they wanted to move into the former Feig’s location, but it didn’t work out. Instead, they moved into a site directly across the street which had once housed an Isaly’s.

They had planned to call the bakery Patti Cakes, but due to trademark issues, had to change plans again. Instead, they chose a name that reflected their family’s Italian heritage, calling it Patti’s Pasticceria, which in Italian means “pastry shop.”

“It kind of stands out,” Macey said. “People wonder what it is.”

The new location is four to five times larger than their location across the street, and Fiasco said the additional space was needed. Due to a lack of space, their cake decorators needed to take the cakes elsewhere to decorate them.

Now, cake decorating is done at the new location and they added more ovens than the old location.

In the years after Feig’s closed, the store housed a variety of other businesses, including a print shop. “We had to completely remodel the whole place to make it a bakery,” Macey said. “We’re very happy to be here. We got everything set up the way we wanted it.”

Andrew Macey and his mother, Patti Fiasco, are the owners of Patti’s Pasticceria in White Oak. (Submitted photo via Facebook)

Patti’s Pasticceria got its start with an investment from Macey, who had gone into nursing. According to Fiasco, he told her, “Mom, I have some money. I want to invest in something. I want to invest in you.”

She agreed, already having a customer base from the people that bought the things she baked from her home.

Macey has since retired from nursing in 2021 to help run Patti’s Pasticceria and a nearby pizza shop they opened in 2020, Patti’s la Cucina. He’s very happy that the family has invested in White Oak.

“We stayed here because of the community,” Macey said.

Fiasco said her customers are like family. One customer even helped them move their equipment across Lincoln Way when they made their move. “We appreciate them, they appreciate us,” she said.

(Submitted photo via Facebook)

And the work at the new space isn’t done. Macey hopes to open a space upstairs from the bakery to host birthday parties and showers. In addition, Macey has an old sign from Feig’s Bakery that he would like to incorporate into a timeline along one of the walls, tracing the history of the location from the time the shop was Feig’s Bakery to today.

In addition to baked goods, Patti’s Pasticceria sells sandwiches, coffee and soup — “We do a ton of soup,” Macey said — but pastries are the stars. Their number one best-sellers are thumbprint cookies with buttercream icing.

“At Christmas time, they almost cause riots,” Fiasco joked. The second-best sellers are their chocolate chip cookies. “People could bake them at home, but they come here to get them,” Macey noted.

He said everything is made on the premises the day it’s ready to be sold. The only exception is gluten-free items, which are made elsewhere in order to remain gluten-free, Macey said.

Fiasco said that most of their bakers learned to bake at home and not at culinary school. “I’ve got a good group of people,” she said. “We couldn’t do it without them.”

Macey came up with the motto “La Famiglia Sempre,” which means Family Always, to describe that theme, and the phrase is on one of the shop’s walls and the shirts worn by the counter staff.

“Our underlying theme is family,” Macey said, and that includes their employees and customers.

“That’s the heartbeat of the bakery,” Fiasco said.

T.J. Martin is a freelance writer from Trafford whose work has also appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Irwin Standard Observer.

Originally published October 16, 2023.

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