Unable to make a decent living, Alessandro Rotella and his wife Marie immigrated to the U.S. First settling in NYC where he worked in the construction business, they would relocate to Omaha in 1915. At this point he went to work in the railroad and worked his way up to foreman before he found himself out of work due to the strike in 1921.
Looking for any way that he could to make money for his young family, Alessandro approached the owner of a small bakery for work. The owner, who was ready to retire, offered to sell the business to him instead for $25 per month. Alessandro had learned the art of baking from his father, Domenico, in Calabria, Italy. In the old country his father would mill his own wheat into flour and bake loaves of bread using a wood-fired oven.
While Alessandro knew how to bake, he lacked a formal education. Marie however had been educated back home in Italy and proved instrumental in the business. Using a recipe handed down by his great grandmother, he and his wife opened Rotella’s Italian Bakery at 2117 Pierce St in 1921. In the beginning the only equipment on hand was a small wood-fired oven and a kneading bench both of which were anchored to a dirt floor.
His business would gradually increase first by selling his bread to local restaurants and then eventually to grocery stores. As their reputation for providing quality, fresh bread grew, they would get phone calls for deliveries which they did from a horse-drawn wagon. After that they would open a retail store in the front of the bakery.
Alessandro, having experienced the death of his wife and partner in 1947 was ready to retire. He turned the business over to his sons Louis and Ameado after they returned home from serving in World War II. The brothers would run the bakery together for the next 28 years. This new generation would introduce automation so that they could further grow the business while ensuring the same high quality their father built his reputation on.
By 1965 they began offering sliced bread in plastic packaging allowing the bread to stay fresh longer. Having outgrown the small shop that their father started 44 years ago, they moved into a large scale facility just a few blocks to the west. The new building at 24th and Pierce had been the Kitty Clover Potato Chip plant. The old building continued to operate as the retail store while their father lived upstairs in the apartment until he passed away in 1971. In 1975 he bought out his brother’s share of the business and became partners with his son just a year later.
The bakery, limited to Omaha-area grocery stores and restaurants, looked to expand nationally. First they expanded into Lincoln followed by Des Moines and Kansas City. It wasn’t until they launched a national campaign to sell fresh, frozen bread that they expanded beyond those markets. It seems they would completely move out of their old building around 1984 when Caterina Malara, whose husband Luigi worked for the bakery, opened a small carryout business from the west end of the building before converting it into her restaurant.
They moved completely out of midtown in 1989 when they opened an even larger facility at 108th and Harrison. By the time Louis passed away in 2009, the bakery had earned numerous industry awards. He was inducetd into the Omaha Hospitality Hall of Fame in 2019. Both he and his son, who is the current owner, were inducted into the Baking Hall of Fame in 2023.
When Rotella’s opened its doors over 100 years ago they offered a single product. Today that has grown to more than 400 varieties of bread, rolls and other back goods. Its bread is a staple in many Omaha households and it has been recognized as “Best of Omaha” by Omaha Magazine. Now one of the largest specialty bakeries in the country, the company with over 400 employees remains family owned and still combines old world skill and expertise with modern technology.
See my page for the history of Orsi’s Italian Bakery & Pizzeria. Perhaps we’ll look at Malara’s in the future which would make the third business that called 22nd and Pierce its home.
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Until next time, keep exploring!
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