By Amy Byrnes
FAIR HAVEN – Tavolo Pronto, a local favorite for paninis, salads, coffee and pastries, is gearing up to expand its baking facilities across River Road in the old Frank & Anita’s salon next month. The new space, dubbed Tavolo Forno, will allow the full-service Italian bistro, bakery and market to increase its selection of freshly baked goods and specialty orders and also accommodate its growing staff.
On a recent morning, Patti Balderas, who has owned Tavolo Pronto with husband Arturo since 2010, was filling a customer’s giant coffee thermos, working the cash register, taking a phone order and answering questions.
She said she and her husband, who live in Red Bank, had been watching the neighborhood for about the last three years for an opportunity to grow. She had her eye on the old Frank & Anita’s, which had been closed for about the same amount of time.
“I’m working in my little table in the front window looking at that empty space across the street and we’re busier and busier crammed into our space,” she said, gesturing to a tower of baking racks next to her crowded with Rice Krispy treats and M&M cookies. “There was just an opportunity there.”
Patti and her baking assistant Katherine Piha, who trained at the Culinary Institute of America, have had to vie for space with cooks and counter staff to produce 40-50 pastry and dessert items daily in the 2,300-square-foot space. When Tavolo Forno (“forno” is Italian for “oven”) becomes operational sometime in June, they’ll produce the bulk of dessert items – like mousses, puddings and cheesecakes – in the approximately 500-square-foot space at 609 River Road that the couple will lease.
Tavolo Pronto prepares anywhere from 30-250 school lunches for Fair Haven’s Knollwood and Sickles schools daily (which was where all those cookies and Rice Krispy treats were headed) and that cuts into her baking production space. Last Friday, their cooks baked 100 personal pizzas before 10:15 a.m. to be packaged and delivered to students for lunch.
Some things, though, need to stay the same, said Balderas, like coming in early to bake muffins, scones and coffee cake fresh each morning in the main location. “We’re still going to bake that in Tavolo Pronto because that’s what it smells like in the morning and that’s what the customers are used to. I don’t want to lose that.”
Balderas pointed out that the addition of Tavolo Forno was just their latest expansion. After buying the restaurant in 2010, the couple decided the following year to add plated dinners to their menu Thursday through Saturday nights. Before buying the business, Arturo Balderas was the head chef at Tavolo Restaurant, a popular and now defunct Italian restaurant in Long Branch. Now he offers the same “quality food” to Tavolo Pronto customers three nights a week, which can be enjoyed in the restaurant’s cozy dining area. During the warmer months, diners can bring a bottle of wine and sit in the sidewalk café that has seating for 20.
After Super Storm Sandy, the couple took over concessions at Ship Ahoy Beach Club in Sea Bright in 2014, which increased their number of employees from 23 – about 12 of whom are full time – to 30. “All summer we just have people running up and down River Road,” said Balderas.
Last year Patti and Arturo worked with the New Jersey Economic Development Authority to purchase the Tavolo Pronto building they’d leased since 2010. That enabled the couple to stop paying rent and start building equity.
But limited baking space has restricted their specialty orders, like their chocolate mousse cake or carrot cakes – which start at around $45 – and specialty cookies and cake pops, said Balderas. “A lot of times we can’t take more than one cake order at a time because we’re just at capacity, as far as space goes,” she said. “This is just an opportunity to produce more and take more cake orders.”
“We just felt like we were busy and growing and there were opportunities to do more,” said Balderas. “The more space we have the more product we’re going to be able to make and sell.”
Asked how she manages to bake hundreds of desserts and pastries, manage a seven-day-a-week operation and raise two sons, Balderas laughed and said she and her husband love what they do.
“We work really hard but the business is succeeding,” she said. “As tired as we are, it’s exciting to see it keep growing and each year is better than the last.”
