Expecting a 20% increase in U.S. Open-related business, Oakmont Bakery is ready
By Gretchen McKay / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Like so many who call Oakmont home, Marc Serrao will be consumed by all things golf when the 125th U.S. Open Championship tees off at the town’s famous country club on Thursday.
And no, it’s not because he’ll be among an estimated 200,000 spectators at the four-day tournament, which also includes practice rounds starting Monday.
Rather, the East Liberty native expects to be really busy at Oakmont Bakery, the business he opened with his wife, Susan, in 1988 and now runs with his son, Tony. The family will hardly get a chance to breathe during the U.S. Open, let alone visit Oakmont’s storied fairways.
On a slow Monday, the bakery serves up to 1,500 customers a day — 100 an hour — in its 18,000-square-foot facility on aptly named Sweet Street. A busy Saturday can draw nearly twice that, Serrao said. With so many people in town for the tourney, the numbers of customers will be substantially higher.
“We’ve always heard that [the Open] kills the town because locals won’t dine here,” fearing traffic or crowds, he said. “But we make a big deal about it, so expect a 25% increase in business” based on previous U.S. Opens. (This is the country club’s 10th time hosting the event.)
Many of those dollars will come from the golf-themed treats the bakery has created for fans. They include chocolate and vanilla iced doughnuts topped with doughnut hole “golf balls” rolled in nonpareils and cupcakes garnished with a golf tee in a bed of green buttercream “grass.”
Known for finding creative ways to turn current news into baked goods — remember its Pittsburgh Sinkhole doughnut in 2019 and Marc Fogel “Welcome Home” cookies this spring? — the bakery also will feature logo cookies for the USGA and official U.S. Open outfitter Peter Millar.
“And we’re doing thousands of doughnuts, cookies, bagels and pastries a day” for RIdgewells Catering to serve to premium ticket holders, corporate clients and fans in upscale locations, he said, along with hundreds of sandwiches each day for the security team.
“They get it,” Serrao says of the catering company. “People feel [the tournament] hurts the town so they do what they can.”
What fans won’t find are cookies decorated with any of the star player’s faces, because players own the rights to their likenesses.
When Taylor Swift was in town for her sold-out Eras Tour two years ago, Oakmont Bakery sold some 60,000 cookies bearing her likeness, and the bakery’s election cookies featuring the faces of presidential candidates — which they have been making for 30 years — are always big sellers.
One of their first tongue-in-cheek cookies in 2018 paid homage to Jack Pearson, the dad character in “This is Us” who died in season two. A box of six came with a complimentary package of Kleenex.
The idea came to Serrao at 3 a.m. on a Sunday while he was at the gym, and were in production two hours later. Even though the bakery closed at 3 p.m. “people were still in line at 6 p.m. We couldn’t sell them fast enough,” he said with a chuckle.
“We always keep up with the trends.”
Raised in Penn Hills, Serrao knew from an early age that he wanted to someday own his own bakery. At 14, the kid who read “Modern Baking” for fun got a job at Donut Shak and quickly went from being a “cleaning guy” to a baker and manager by age 17, with guidance from owner Guy Pratillo.
Penn Hills High School at the time offered a DECA program for students interested in careers in marketing, hospitality and management, and the classes helped cement his goal to make a living from flour, butter and eggs.
“I love the creativity of it,” he said.
He loved cake decorating in particular, so when a 1,200-square-foot bakery on Allegheny River Boulevard became available (its owner died 10 days after opening in 1987), Serrao — then 27— talked his wife into purchasing it.
“I was day baker, cake decorator, everything,” he said.
In 1993, the couple moved the growing business to a larger location on Allegheny Avenue, and as they got busier, added indoor and outdoor dining along with a warehouse for storing packaging and ingredients.
Their son Tony — who also knew from an early age that he wanted to be a baker — came on board in 2008, after attending the American Institute of Baking in Kansas.
“That really took [us] to the next level,” his father said.
With the business still growing, the family expanded once again in 2019, moving to an 18,000-square-foot building at the corner of Hulton Road and Third Street.
Serrao said the sleek, functional design was inspired by a visit to Porto’s Bakery, a small chain in California known for its high-quality baked goods and eye-catching aesthetic.
“People said, ‘You can’t build that in Pittsburgh!” he recalled with a laugh. But with a customer base that draws from all around Pittsburgh, he was sure he could.
“My goal early on was to become a destination, and that’s what we are.”
One reason may be because of the enormous selection in the 5,000-square-foot retail space designed by Desmone Architects. It includes separate cases for various types of baked goods, and seating for 80 diners next to floor-to-ceiling windows that flood the bakery with natural light.
To accommodate all the extra mouths the bakery expects to serve over the course of the Open, Serrao is adding 50 college and high school students to his staff of 225.
He expects some of his customers this week and next will to include pro golfers — Paula Creamer was so impressed by its breakfast sandwiches during the week of the 2010 Open that she ate one every day and included a shout-out to the bakery in a recent video. As a a non-golfer, he readily admits he probably wouldn’t recognize them. And even if he did, he’ll probably be too busy to look up.
Tony Serrao agreed that the hustle and bustle of the daily business can’t be beat. “Seeing all the regulars or out-of-state license plates ... it’s such a cool thing.”
Even when they’re not on site, he said, his mother complains that the bakery is all they talk about. “But what else is there?”
Case in point: When he found out his wife was pregnant with twins eight years ago, the first thing he thought was: “Day baker, night baker.”