Bakery

You might not find Sachertortes or violins at Andreotti's Viennese Cafe, but there is always an interesting dessert tray and some music to help you dance away the dinner calories. This charming Cherry Hill restaurant has three large dining rooms - one with art-deco prints and brocade-lined booths called Stars - a fixed-price menu (of sorts) with Mediterranean dishes, and superb service. The Viennese tag goes back to the days when Andreotti's was basically a bakery. Or as Marianne Andreotti likes to describe it: "We started as a bakery that served food and grew into a restaurant that has its own bakery.

The Peter Pan Bakery and adjacent Peter Pan Gift Shop, a father-daughter business venture that has been a landmark in town for nearly three decades, is celebrating an Un-Retirement. Banners - decorated with etchings of balloons - and streamers proclaim in big, black letters: "Retirement Postponed Indefinitely . . . Here to Stay Charlie and Melody Manning. " In August, Charles Manning, 78, the owner of the Main Street bakery and gift shop for 48 years, announced plans to retire and sell the businesses.

At Brown Betty Dessert Boutique, they're selling cakes, of course, but there's something more: It's a story of family, and you can see the names on the products in the display cases of the Northern Liberties-based bakery. There's "To Miss Mary," a sweet-potato cheesecake named after an aunt who ran a beauty shop at 48th and Fairmount. And a sweet-potato cake called "Only for Eliza," after a country woman from Virginia with a soft touch for anyone needing a meal. And a chocolate sour-cream cake called "Dear Ruth," in honor of a woman who died young but is remembered for her fashion sense.

The Philadelphia Navy Yard is among the sites Tasty Baking Co. is considering for a new bakery, according to people familiar with negotiations. The Philadelphia company said last May that it would look for ways to upgrade its manufacturing operations, raising the possibility that it would close its 85-year-old facility in the Nicetown section of Philadelphia. The company is still reviewing alternatives, company spokeswoman Mary Borneman said. "We haven't made any decision, and our preference is to remain in Philadelphia," she said.

Maybe digestible dreams do come true, because it's now possible, as a gluten-free eater, to get decent French bread in the Philadelphia area. "Good bread was always the first thing our customers have asked for," says Regina Petruzziello Mason, owner and recipe developer at Lansdale's Virago, which sells gluten-free baguettes, Danish, hoagie rolls, even Irish soda bread in its bakery and cafe. Celiacs and the gluten-intolerant used to be the beggars at the table, accepting whatever (wheatless)

Mariangela Basso Termini lay in a hospital bed last week, too ill to speak. She found another way to say goodbye to her only granddaughter. "As sick as she was, she put out her hands as if to say, 'Don't worry, I'll be OK and you'll be OK,' " Maria Termini said. "Her hands were softer than mine, and I'm 19," said Maria, who was named after her grandmother. "She was still trying to comfort her family, saying, 'Don't cry for me, I've had a good life, and I'll be with you forever.

There was one more move to be made, and Joseph Termini made it gracefully. One by one, he took about a dozen huge strawberries from a dish and placed them on the mountain of whipped cream that topped the strawberry shortcake he was preparing. "I wonder," Termini said as he stepped back to survey his work, "how many times I've done this in 65 years. I wouldn't even try to guess. " What is no guess is that Termini is 87 years old or that seven days a week throughout the year, except for a four-week vacation that he neither desires nor enjoys, he arrives at his workplace about 6 a.m. and remains until about 6 p.m. During those 12 hours, he bustles around like a hurried beaver, sometimes neglecting to eat lunch.

Bryn Mawr's business district is seeing a resurgence of retail activity as a children's clothing store expands and a bakery and a Mediterranean-theme gift shop move in with plans to open in May. Marcella Soret Children's Wear, at 853 W. Lancaster Ave. for about 36 years, is moving to larger quarters nearby at 845 W. Lancaster Ave. and adding children's shoes to its merchandise mix, according to co-owner Ed Dever. It plans to open at the new location April 15. The Dever family, which owns 853 W. Lancaster, purchased the building at its new location as well, Dever said.

Tasty Baking director of sales operations Bill Mandia knows what it's like to give your heart to a company. And that's what he's done for 25 years at Tasty Baking Co. But sometimes, he said, when he looked around the company's 80-year-old bakery in Philadelphia's Nicetown section, he had to wonder. Would this business even be around in the future? Or would someone buy it and close it, leaving an empty hulk and even more empty lives? So to him, the first official day of business at Tasty Baking's new corporate headquarters in South Philadelphia's Navy Yard meant more than just having a considerably more pleasant place to work.

After 27 years with the Chester Redevelopment Authority, the last eight as a demolition officer, the world caved in on Jerry Mingis. He was fired. "A new administration came in," Mingis said, "and one day in February of 1993, they told me I was through. In less than two hours, I was out of there. " However, his dismissal accelerated a long-nurtured dream to go into business for himself. He made the decision two days after his firing. He had the support of his wife, Louise, and five daughters.