After years running parish banquets, Sharpsburg native opens Main Street eatery

Up to his elbows in butter cream frosting, Brother Tom Hartman doesn't skip a beat when the industrial size oven buzzes like an alarm from the kitchen of his new diner along Main Street in Sharpsburg.

In one fell swoop, he extracts a pan of cannoli and smoothly glides six poppy seed rolls into the massive steel unit.

“My grandmother worked for Kroger at their bakery warehouse in the Strip,” said Hartman, 47, a resident of Indiana Township. “I grew up with this in my kitchen.”

Hartman, who spent the past 17 years running banquets and business lunches for parishes in the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh, is a member of the Society of the Brother Servants of the Holy Spirit.

A native of Sharpsburg who moved to Shaler in his early childhood, Hartman has traded one calling for another.

While he still assists with church duties at St. John the Baptist Church in McKeesport, Hartman now happily mans the kitchen “24-7” at Brother Tom's Bakery, a 72-seat eatery he hopes will help spur revitalization of Sharpsburg's commercial district.

“When the building became available, I thought it would be a nice location to open up,” he said.

Hartman fondly recalls Main Street as a vibrant corridor with frequent foot traffic. In its heyday, there were butcher shops, bowling alleys, pharmacies and penny candy stores.

“When you got old enough, it was a big deal that you could cross the street and go buy some treats,” he said.

As a nod to that nostalgia, Hartman keeps a fully stocked shelf of old-time candy from the 1960s and 70s that includes Necco Wafers and Turkish Taffy.

Despite the borough having turned its eye toward industry and manufacturing, Main Street can return to its glory, said the Shaler Area graduate who with his family now owns the red brick building that formerly housed two borough staples — Dom's Market and Sacco's Pizzeria.

A self-described workaholic, Hartman gets a helping hand from his family. Financial backing from his parents facilitated the purchase of the storefront and both of them pitch in to help daily operations too. Hartman's stepfather performs routine maintenance and his mother, Mary Ann Watterson, wears several hats in her role as hostess, cashier and bakery assistant.

“I look forward to it every day,” she said. “When he did events for some of the churches, we would have to make 1,000 dozen of paczki (a Polish donut). This is rewarding for me.”

When she's not greeting the customers or dusting fixtures, Watterson is busy filling the glass display shelves with cranberry-banana muffins, elephant ears and brownies.

Hartman's nephew, Tommy Blank, 25, mans the griddle, turning out fried eggs and pancakes before the lunch rush turns his attention to the deep fryer and golden crispy French fries.

“I just run around and do whatever he needs,” Blank said.

In addition to breakfast and lunch, the store offers deli meats to go, as well as homemade pierogi and daily soups. There also will be year round fresh-baked paska, the European egg bread offered typically at Easter.

Customers like Carolyn Stanislauskis of O'Hara are pleased to have a new place to grab a quick homemade meal and pastries to take home.

“This place has been so many different things over the years so it's nice to have a restaurant back,” she said. “It was good too.”

Tawnya Panizzi is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. She can be reached at 412-782-2121, ext. 2 or at tpanizzi@tribweb.com.