Eddie Baldassari Story: Small business is hard work, The

Mercer Business, Sep 01, 1995 by Delany, Don

Any young person aspiring to a career in the world of business and looking for a role model would not go so wrong in trying to emulate Eddie Baldassari.

Baldassari, who has been named the Mercer County Chamber of Commerce's "Small Businessman of the Year," is a man who has risen from the humblest of beginnings to become one of the area's best-known entrepreneurs, thanks to hard work, initiative and an extraordinary willingness to go the extra mile to make the community a better place in which to live and work.

Baldassari at the present time operates four popular establishments in the area--Eddie's Deluxe Deli and Coffee Shop at 508 Hamilton Avenue, the Baldassari Regency, the elegant banquet hall and catering business at 145 Morris Avenue, Baldassari's Roebling Pub at 801 South Clinton Avenue, in Trenton, and Eddie's Deluxe Deli and Coffee Shop II at 628 Arena Drive in Hamilton. He also has a check-cashing business adjacent to the Hamilton Avenue restaurant.

He employs some 40 people in his various enterprises, a number that increases to as many as 60 when the catering end is especially busy.

Italo (Eddie) Baldassari was just 17 years-old when he launched his first business venture, a small luncheonette on North Warren Street in the city. But the solid work ethic which has contributed so greatly to his success was formed long before that. He was born in Rome, Italy, the third of five children of Antonio and Adeline Baldassari, and his father died when he was seven. He went to work in a slaughterhouse operated by an uncle where meat products were made.

He was nine when his mother brought him to Trenton to live with an aunt. He attended St. Joachim's School and Trenton High School, and at age 10 he went to work for Barbero's bakery delivering bread. There he learned how to make bread and the doughnuts which later were to become his trademark. (For years his Hamilton Avenue shop was known as Eddie' Doughnuts.)

When Armand Barbero went out on his own and opened a shop on Hamilton Avenue, Baldassari, then 16, joined him. A year later, Eddie decided it was time for him to be his own boss and opened his tiny steak house on Warren Street, across from St. Mary's Cathedral. He vividly recalls standing in front of his shop and watching in horror as the Cathedral burned to the ground on that early morning in March, 1956.

Not long afterward he moved his shop to Hamilton Avenue and Hudson Streets, where he started making doughnuts. Later he relocated what became a wholesale doughnut business to Butler Street. "When I was 18 years-old I had two trucks on the road," he recalls, "and I was taking customers away from Armand Barbero and his big rival, the Prior Baking Company."

When he was 23 he established the business at 508 Hamilton Avenue, where it has been a centerpiece of his activities ever since.

Twelve years ago he acquired the former Arbeiter Singing Society home at Morris Avenue and Division Street and converted it into the Baldassari Regency, whose main hall can accommodate 400 people for banquets, weddings, etc. There is also a downstairs room which can hold 160 people, and a smaller one on the third floor with a capacity of 50.

Baldassari says he invested $1 million to renovate the Regency, and he now has plans to spend another $200,000 to refurbish the exterior

In the eyes of many people in the area, Baldassari's success as a businessman is overshadowed by his tireless work in behalf of charitable and social agencies through the years. It would be difficult to name an organization serving the less fortunate in the area which has not benefited from Eddie's persuasive fundraising ability.

Those efforts date back to when he was 18 years-old. A close friend who frequented his shop on Hamilton Avenue developed a brain tumor. His family had no money, so Baldassari got together a group of friends and canvassed the neighborhood for contributions. They raised $300 which helped defray the stricken young man's hospital bills.

Since then Baldassari has been a leader in fund-raising drives for countless groups. One of the founders of the Hamilton-Chambers Merchants Association, he has chaired that organization's campaign against muscular dystrophy and its "Pace-A-Thon" for the benefit of Deborah Hospital. Other drives which he has headed have included one for Italian earthquake victims, for the benefit of the Divine Word Seminary in Bordentown, and he has worked for the Baron A. A., the Kent A. A., the Roman Hall Society, the Italian American Sportsmen's Club, the Knights of Columbus, the Trenton Lions Club, among others.

He has participated in fund-raisers for the Sunshine Foundation and its programs in behalf of seriously ill children. He is a board member of the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital at Hamilton Foundation, and has served as chairman of the Boys Town of Italy, Mercer County Chapter.

A drive of which he is especially proud is one he led in 1983 in behalf of a 10 year-old Chambersburg boy, Joey Chiavarone, who suffered from muscular dystrophy. Over a period of a year and a half Baldassari raised more than $25,000, which paid for surgery for the youngster, a wheelchair and other necessities to make life more liveable for him.