It’s last call for croissants in Millvale this weekend.
After more than 30 years, Jean-Marc Chatellier is retiring and closing his pastry shop on North Avenue.
“It’s time to go,” said Chatellier, 64, the son of a bread baker from the village of Couffé in western France. “It’s the new chapter in life, I guess.”
For the last two days, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, breakfast pastries, apple strudels and Breton shortbread will be the only offerings at Jean-Marc Chatellier’s French Bakery.
Chatellier is closing after his efforts to sell his business, his two buildings or some combination of those didn’t work out over the past four years.
“Small bakeries like ours will exist only in memories, replaced by chains,” his wife, Sandy, wrote on the shop’s Facebook page. “It’s happening in France, here and all over the world. It’s becoming economically unfeasible to operate a small chef-owned bakery. On every level, in every aspect, running any kind of chef-owned business is becoming exceedingly difficult.”
Chatellier and his wife, who worked in marketing, have been running the shop together since the covid pandemic. After meeting in Los Angeles, they made their home in Shaler, where Sandy was from, and raised two daughters.
After beginning selling only to restaurants and country clubs, Chatellier, at his wife’s urging, opened to the public in September 1992. As walk-in traffic grew, he went retail only.
“Without her, this place wouldn’t exist,” he said.
Millvale was an affordable place to set up shop, according to Sandy.
“We were at least 20 years ahead of the gentrification trend,” she wrote. “It wasn’t celebrated. We were viewed as oddities.”
At a time when there were few French cafes and restaurants around Pittsburgh, Sandy wrote they “felt perpetually misunderstood.”
“For quite a while, we had to apologize to customers who asked us to explain how we could call ourselves a bakery if we didn’t have doughnuts,” she wrote. “Over the years, it was interesting to witness the complaints of no doughnuts change to complaints of how could we call ourselves a French bakery if we weren’t making the certain type of French pastry they wanted.”
Running the shop has meant many years of early mornings, long days and working for 75 to 90 hours a week, Chatellier said. Even with the shop open only two days a week, he still had been working six days.
The hard work meant he and Sandy have never been to a Christmas party or a New Year’s party.
“It was always work, work, work. It’s not fair for my wife,” he said. “Finally, we’re going to have a normal Christmas.”
When Sandy put out a social media post Feb. 20 about savoring what might be her last Jean-Marc chocolate croissant, people got the idea that the following Saturday was going to be the last day, resulting in a nonstop line.
Jean-Marc was flattered. He also has been touched by those who have shared memories with him, about cakes he’s made for christenings, communions, birthdays, weddings and baby showers.
“Everyone leaves with a smile, which is a great thing,” he said. “I can tell everybody, I made people happy.”