60 years for Bethel Park’s Bethel Bakery
Morris Walsh, left, founded Bethel Bakery 60 years ago. He and his wife, Anna, eventually sold the business to son John, right.
The original Bethel Bakery shop on South Park Road previously had been the location of Sugar ‘N’ Spice Shop.
Harry Funk / Staff Bethel Bakery owner John Walsh, right, shows a photo to a customer.
Harry Funk / Staff Johnny Hartwell from 3WS does his show from Bethel Bakery on Sept. 4.
Harry Funk / Staff Bethel Bakery is celebrating its 60th anniversary.
Harry Funk / Staff Bethel Bakery is celebrating its 60th anniversary.
Harry Funk / Staff Bethel Bakery is celebrating its 60th anniversary.
Harry Funk / Staff Bethel Bakery is celebrating its 60th anniversary.
When he started his own bakery in 1955, Morris Walsh didn’t exactly have a huge customer base from which to draw.
“I always tell everybody, to give you an idea of how small Bethel Park was, we had a one-man police force at the time,” he recalled. “We grew with Bethel Park.”
His creation, Bethel Bakery, has grown substantially even since Morris’ son John took over the family business in 1991. At that time, the business had fewer than 40 employees, a number that has more than doubled as customers keep on coming, some of them for decade after decade.
John Walsh recalled meeting a woman who arrived on a special mission in the spring.
“She told me, ‘I got my first communion cake here. I ordered my daughter’s first communion cake here, and now I’m ordering my granddaughter’s first communion cake,” he said.
Similarly loyal customers helped celebrate Bethel Bakery’s 60th anniversary at the start of September with a series of special events throughout the week.
Morris was on hand to greet visitors, and his wife, Anna, was in back to help ensure everything proceeded smoothly. Both are lifelong Bethel Park residents, and they met while attending Bethel Park High School.
At the time, Morris worked for a bakery called Dudt’s in Mt. Lebanon. After graduating and then serving in the Korean War, he decided to start his own venture, taking over a spot on South Park Road that once was known as Sugar ‘N’ Spice Shop, selling “do-nuts” among other baked goods and confections.
“I was the one working in the shop, and I had one salesgirl. That’s it,” he said.
The former Anna Stockhausen came aboard to take care of matters not only at the store but at home, where the Walshes raised seven children.
“Every one of them worked in the bakery as they were growing up,” Morris Walsh said.
Meanwhile, Bethel Bakery faced the challenge of competing against other retail purveyors of baked goods in the proximity.
“When we first started, we didn’t have money to advertise,” Anna Walsh recalled, saying that the business always has depended strongly on word of mouth.
Bethel Bakery moved to its current Brightwood Road location in 1958, and after three-and-a-half decades of running the business, Morris and Anna sold it to John, their oldest son, and his wife, Chris. They have carried on the tradition that started back in those one-man-police-force years.
“It’s a blessing that we’ve been invited to so many family celebrations over the years,” John Walsh said about the bakery’s products, while sharing some insight about why he thinks the business continues to have success.
“You sell more than just the cake,” he said. “You sell joy. It’s the anticipation of something special coming up, and you know it’s not going to be an ordinary day.”