‘It’s the end of an era’: Final day looms for beloved market bakery

It’s been a staple of Queen Victoria Market for more than 50 years, but M&G Caiafa bread and pastries shop will open for the last time on Sunday morning.

Devoted regulars have flocked to the store this week, not just to secure black olive baguettes and pistachio and raspberry croissants at the fixture of the market’s dairy hall, but also to have one last banter, hug and the odd cry with the owners many considered friends.

The shop was opened by Italian immigrants Michael and Grace Caiafa in 1974. Their children MJ (Mary-Jane), Michelle and Michael junior, who have run the shop since a family tragedy 30 years ago, say they will dearly miss their customers – some of whom they have known since childhood.

But the siblings were tired of the 4am starts and missing their kids’ weekend sports games. MJ said they decided it was time to sell.

The buyer is the business Two Bakers, meaning the shop will continue as a bakery.

The decision to move on echoed a unity and resolve reminiscent of the terrible time in August 1995, when Grace, who was also known as Rosie, died of a brain tumour.

With Michael senior too heartbroken to work and caring for his two youngest children, MJ and Michelle, who were then 19 and 17, reopened the shop three weeks after their mother’s passing.

“It was 5am and me and my sister sat outside in the car in the market car park, I think for 20 or 30 minutes, and we looked at each other. Then we said, ‘OK, we’ve got to do this,’” Michelle said of that first day.

“And we went straight to work.”

There was no thought of quitting. “We just stepped up,” Michelle said. “I’d left year 12 earlier that year to spend more time with Mum, help with our little sister and help with the shop.”

She said MJ would clean and cook at home before and after work.

“We stuck together,” Michelle said. “We looked after each other.”

Then in early 2000, after Michael junior finished year 12, he also joined the bakery full-time.

Michael senior later returned to work in the background, packing goods, making M&G Caiafa peanut butter and serving on Sundays.

MJ said that during COVID-19, Michael junior kept the business going by starting a home delivery service across Melbourne with their youngest sister, Amanda.

Customer Grace Hicks, said she and her two sisters went to the bakery weekly as children in the 1990s with their father, and she now takes her own children Robert, 4, and Stella, 3.

Hicks said she was happy the Caiafas would have a break. “But I’m sad that we won’t see them each week. It’s the end of an era,” she said.

MJ Caiafa said her mother, who was 45 when she died, would be at ease with the closure.

“She worked so hard and didn’t get to enjoy life beyond the market,” she said. “So it made it easier for us to decide to do things we always wanted to do, to have no regrets in life and enjoy it.”

Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.