There were bitter tears the day the news was told. One longstanding customer started crying, there and then in the shop. She just couldn't believe that Morgan Hackett would no longer be there inside the Bretzel bakery. A "For Sale" sign went up outside the Lennox Street bakery back in late June. Without doubt the Bretzel, with its handmade gingerbread men and spicy breads, is a Dublin institution.
The sweet smells of the bakery have been wafting down South Richmond Street since the 1870s and have inspired love and loyalty in the hearts and stomachs of generations of Dubliners. Bagels, onion bread, tomato bread and Austrian strudel. For foodies all over the capital, the little Portobello corner bakery ranks up there with Caviston's of Glasthule, Magills of Clarendon Street and a few other establishments some of which are now long gone.
Sunday morning customers of this Portobello bakery take credit for making bed-heads and bagels fashionable. Queueing outside the Bretzel was the place to be seen on a Sunday morning. The years pass, Sundays are no longer a blank space in the filofax, the cafes and restaurants of Dublin are open from early morning on, and still those style-setters line up on Lennox Street, clutching the newspapers. The Bretzel has been a life's work for Morgan Hackett. For nearly 40 years, the day's work began at 5 a.m. and sometimes he was still there elbow deep until late afternoon. Ill-health is forcing him to sell up.
Still known as the Jewish bakery even though the kosher tradition is long abandoned, it is one of the oldest bakeries in Dublin. Back in the 1900s, the Grinspon family ran a small bakery here, and it began to be known as the Lennox Street Bakery from 1910, when the Elliman family took it over. The chain of Jewish owners was broken when Christie Hackett, Morgan's father, took it over from Ida Stein in the early 1960s. Christie Hackett was trained in the kosher way of doing things and the bakery has been in the family since then.
The history of the Bretzel parallels the history of the Jewish community in Dublin. The streets stretching from Portobello to Clanbrassil Street were once the heartland of a vibrant Jewish community. Now a museum at Richmond Hill and the Bretzel are the only lingering Jewish landmarks. Until three or four years ago, the bakery still produced kosher fare. This meant that the day-to-day running of the bakery was strictly supervised.
"I remember when the Jewish supervisor would come in every day to watch how we were making the breads. Kosher simply means clean. Passover was observed strictly, we weren't allowed use flour and so we had to use meal. The Jewish supervisor would have to check the bakery to make sure there wasn't a trace of flour anywhere. It was a very elongated way of making a living really," says Mr Hackett.
Exotic and colourful, the aromatic produce at Lennox Street is renowned for its varieties of bread in the land of the sliced pan. Bagels, rye bread, olive bread, Italian focaccia bread with garlic, salt and red peppers. Sweet-corn and black olives; tomato bread with fennel, oregano and garlic. Everyone has their favourite. Despite all these healthy choices, the bakery's customers have very sweet teeth. Top sellers at Portobello are items such as the chocolate log madeira cake with marzipan topping and custard pie.
Everyone has their weakness. With more than a hint of longing in her eyes, and a rumbling in her stomach, this reporter took herself off to sniff out the forbidden - a wheat intolerance means that bread and all other wheat products are on the "strictly not to be consumed" list. Going to the Bretzel is like being Augustus Gloop in the Willy Wonka chocolate factory. Like many before me, I came out clutching a bag of gingerbread men, muffins and an almond croissant.
It was back in the late 1970s when the Bretzel began gaining popularity with the ordinary folk of Dublin. Soda bread and sliced pans were the order of day. Bagels, sour bread and continental loaves started finding favour and, slowly, non-Jewish customers started to come out of the woodwork. "By the time of the yuppies of the 1980s `discovered' us," says Hackett, "we already had a firm hold on the stomachs of Dubliners".
The Jewish community dwindled over the years and by the early 1990s there were only some 1,500 Jews living in Dublin. "A few years ago the current chief Rabbi came to me to say that, sadly, the numbers in the Jewish community could no longer justify this existence. So the Bretzel went mainstream," says Hackett. Not all that much changed though. All produce is handmade daily using traditional recipes - that has always been the way, it just meant that the Jewish supervisor no longer stood by to watch.
Hackett once had ambitious plans for his business. The plans were to convert the upper floors, which were used as accommodation for years, into a cafe, and maybe even franchise the business. The wholesale trade has dominated business in recent years and demand for this sector limited expansion of the shop. The Bretzel supplies restaurants and cafes all over Dublin with fresh produce on a daily basis.
And so what happens now? Morgan Hackett is selling the business as a going concern. "I'm selling the Bretzel as the Bretzel, not as a corner building on Lennox Street. Hopefully, whoever takes it over will continue the Bretzel, and you never know they may just have the time and energy to expand the business. I really would've liked to see tearooms up above, serving those big plates of cakes where you pick and choose what you want just like years ago."