The Pretzel Bakery on Federal Street

The Federal Pretzel Baking Company once made soft pretzels at 636 Federal Street in South Philadelphia. The business began in 1922 with Maria and Giuseppe Nacchio, who ran a small Italian bakery where Maria baked soft pretzels. Their son Edmund saw more in it and built a factory, pairing hand-twisting with conveyor equipment brought over from Germany. It became the first company in Philadelphia to make soft pretzels on a large scale, and by 1978 it was turning out some 60,000 a day. Food writers credit those conveyor belts with the city's particular pretzel: pressed together on the line, the twist came out as a flat figure eight rather than the rounder shape baked elsewhere. The family sold the company to J&J Snack Foods in 2000. A fire later closed the Federal Street bakery, and the building stood empty for years. In 2015 the city issued permits for a laundromat in part of the building. In 2016 the company's old office on the 7th Street corner, known in the neighborhood for its sign, was slated for demolition to make room for new houses.