Patrick Sbrizza wanted nothing to do with the family bakery after graduating high school, but 25 years after his parents sold their bakery in Rochester, he reopened Lou’s Pastry in August and business, like the dough, is rising.
Sbrizza comes from a long line of bakers, starting with his grandfather, who began baking in the kitchen of the Waldorf Hotel in Boston at age 15 and eventually became head baker. His father, Lou, also a baker, opened several bakeries in the Boston area and eventually Rochester, where the family moved when Patrick was nine.
Patrick grew up in the family business, but as soon as he graduated high school he did everything he could to get away from it. He joined the U.S. Marine Corps and served four years.
When his dad needed to retire due to medical issues, he offered to sell the business to Patrick, who gave a hard pass. “I felt like I didn’t know who I was,” he says. “I was doing everything that everyone else wanted me to do.”
He opened his own painting business and then worked for UPS for several years before retiring early. Meanwhile, the new owners that bought the bakery ended up closing it after three years.
Over the years, a thought always rested at the back of Patrick’s mind—a need to reopen the family bakery. “It was something that I really missed once it wasn’t there anymore,” he says.
He visited the Veteran’s Administration, which connected him to a program that allowed him to enroll in the pastry program at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts in Massachusetts. “Once I got into school and started moving dough around,” he says he knew he was on the right track.
He graduated in 2023, and after developing a business plan, securing funding and finding a location, opened in August 2025. Customers have been flocking to Lou’s since. “It was stressful because I literally had $300 in my bank account when the doors open,” Patrick says. “Failure is not an option.”
The bakery has been selling out daily and Patrick makes everything by hand along with his father Lou, who is now 71. Lou’s Pastry makes a variety of goodies from danishes to layered cakes.
Patrick uses the 100-year-old recipes that had been taught to his grandfather and passed down through the generations. “It’s a baker, a bench, dough and a rolling pin,” Patrick says. “This is old world baking.” For more information, visit louspastry.com
