Locals remember Sweeney's Bakery on its last day of 60 years

Sweeney's Bakery opened for its final day Saturday after more than 60 years, with a line out the door of locals waiting for their last confectionery bite. 

The Brandywine Hundred bakery was a staple for its customers, many of whom said they grew up celebrating with Sweeney's baked goods.

Valerie Allston said she was invited into her husband's family with Sweeney's. Every holiday, every birthday, Sweeney's was there. They have been going to the store for 50 years.

"It feels like we've had a death in the family," Allston said. 

The owner, James C. Sweeney III, said in a Facebook post he will not be signing a new lease. In 1957, the bakery was founded by Sweeney III's parents, James C. Sweeney Jr. and Margaret Sweeney.

Allston's husband, Paul Allston, grew up near the bakery in the F and N Shop Village Shopping Center, and he would put his brother in the wagon to pull him to the store for pastries. Valerie recalled a St. Patrick's Day 19 years ago when she was pregnant with her daughter. She walked in while in labor to buy their famous "Frogs" as she did every year.

"They were in shock, but I had to make sure my boys had their frogs when I was in the hospital. They gave me like four dozen frogs and pizza and pushed me out the door before I could pay," she said. 

Her daughter, now a University of Delaware student, wore the Sweeney's T-shirt the day of the closing with tears in her eyes. 

The holiday specialties, like the "Frogs" small vanilla cakes with cream filling and stacked mounds of green frosting, will be sorely missed in the household. 

"How are we going to celebrate the holidays without the Sweeney's staples?" 

The bakery has such a distinct taste, she said, that they will never be replaced. The cakes were spongy and moist with creme icing, a combination Allston won't forget. 

"They must have had magic in that kitchen because there was nowhere else like it," she said. 

She made sure to buy as many chocolate squares to freeze before Saturday because they are a necessity in the Allston home.  

Kirsten Bachmann Rasky equates Sweeney's with home. 

Rasky, a Delaware native now living in New Jersey, said every time she would come home, her father went to Sweeney's to get her a chocolate chip danish. 

"They have been on that corner for my entire life," Rasky said. "It was like our Sunday thing." 

She remembers the sweet smell of the bakery that made her stomach beg for everything in the store. Because of them, she has always carried a high regard for bakers. 

"It's the end of an era. I feel bad for people who live there now and didn't know the way it used to be," she said. 

Jeff Biscoe, a lifelong Delawarean of 54 years, said while he didn't go to the bakery often, all the memories of his mother and aunts bringing back cookies and desserts flooded his mind after reading about the closing. 

"I just wish I could have had one last cupcake before they closed," he said. 

Allston hopes that someone in the family keeps the recipe alive, and one day there will be another Sweeney's. Her husband's birthday is next week, and she is at a loss for celebration ideas without the bakery.

"We just don't know what we are going to do," Allston said. "I guess we will have to learn how to bake."

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Contact Josephine Peterson at (302)379-0391, jhpeterson@delawareonline.com or on Twitter @jopeterson93.