Family behind Herman’s Bakery ‘choose life,’ plan to close Dundalk landmark after decades

The small-yet-mighty Herman’s Bakery has served breads and pastries in Dundalk for more than six decades. Now, the local landmark is shuttering its doors.

The beloved spot, known for its strawberry shortcakes, chocolate fudge cookies and real marshmallow doughnuts, announced Tuesday evening on Facebook that it will close March 31 after “a lot of thought and a heavy heart.” The business referred to the closure as a retirement after serving “the community for over 103 years with our 6 generations of family proudly operating in the Baltimore Region.”

The store is the last surviving business of several bakeries run by the Herman family, which opened their first shop in Highlandtown in 1923 as Harry’s Bakery. Adrienne Porcella, who will run the 7560 Holabird Ave. store in Dundalk with her mother through the end of the month, said the closure is a long time coming.

“We had a really good run and we’ve proven ourselves as a family,” the 57-year-old said.

Porcella said she didn’t expect the business to last more than six months after her grandfather, Harry J. Herman Sr., who opened the Holabird Avenue location, died in 2003. Herman started baking at 12 and continued to work until he was 80, according to his obituary in The Baltimore Sun. In his absence, many of Porcella’s family members needed to learn to bake and master his recipes, referred to by the family as “formulas.”

It wasn’t easy. Porcella said when the bakery began, women were taught to decorate and finish cakes, not bake. She described the process of learning to bake as meticulous and labor-intensive. “It’s really hard to find people who want to do this kind of work,” Porcella said, citing long hours and busy holiday weekends. She added that stress and health issues from the physical labor have been challenging, including for her 77-year-old uncle and 83-year-old mother, who continue to work alongside her at the store.

The family business once spanned six bakeries across the Baltimore region, including in White Marsh, Hunt Valley, Rosedale and Towson. They each shuttered over time due to the rising cost of overhead, rent, ingredients and wages, Porcella said. Utility bills have also recently taken a toll: Their at least 15,000-square-foot Dundalk building just received a BGE utility bill for $8,000, she said.

Porcella beams when thinking about the obstacles her family overcame, though, outlasting other local bakeries that faded with the uptick of box stores and supermarket chains that sold baked goods. Then, in March 2024, there was the loss of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which made accessing the bakery more difficult from outside the neighborhood, she said.

Former Herman’s head baker Larry DeSantis spent 31 years at the Dundalk shop before retiring two years ago, and was the last driver to cross the bridge before its collapse. After the bridge fell, he told The Banner, his rides into work took much longer, from 20 minutes to an hour.

Herman’s had turned into a Dundalk institution over the years, he felt. “I’m surprised it lasted this long,” DeSantis said. He saw the bakery appear on locally themed Monopoly boards and once believed he would work there until he died.

But that was not a fate Porcella wanted for her or her family. She said closing the last Herman’s Bakery before the busy Easter holidays and a season of permit and license renewals was her way of prioritizing her family.

“Everybody just works until they’re gone and it really isn’t fair on them,” Porcella said, adding that she has recently had her own health struggles.

“I think it’s time for my mom to be able to rest and travel,” she said. ”I have to choose life, their life.”

This article has been updated to remove an incorrect reference to a pay rate in 1958.