Three weeks ago, a beloved bakery in the Hill neighborhood of South St. Louis got a new co-owner. Chris Gambaro, who’d long operated Missouri Baking Company with his sister Camille Lordo, sold his 50 percent share to longtime friend Anthony Favazza.
But the new partnership quickly became rocky. Last Friday, Lordo sued Favazza’s company in St. Louis Circuit Court, asking a judge to dissolve their co-owned company and dispose of the assets.
Find the best food in St. Louis
Subscribe to the St. Louis Dining In and Dining Out newsletters to stay up-to-date on the local restaurant and culinary scene.
Lordo’s attorney, Mark Sanders, didn’t return a message seeking comment yesterday, but Favazza tells SLM the suit came without any warning or discussion. However, he acknowledges the partnership got off to a rocky start.
Favazza says he initially got interested in the acquisition only because Gambaro reached out, asking him to buy his shares. (Favazza says Gambaro wanted to sell to his sister but they’d hit an impasse on terms.) Lordo at first resisted communication—and then, after he came by the shop to talk to her after his purchase of Gambaro’s shares, quickly grew hostile. After a few days of trying to interact at the shop, he says she involved her lawyer and treated him as “an uninvited intruder.”
Favazza says he hasn’t been inside the bakery for two weeks: “I’m trying to be respectful and work through everything.” But he says Lordo won’t turn over financial records, and ultimately refused to talk to him other than through lawyers.
When they sat down with her attorneys, they asked how much he wanted for his shares. “She told me, ‘No way I’m going to sell to you—inconceivable,’” Favazza relates. But without the financial records, he felt incapable of setting a price for her to buy him out. He says, “I drive by and see the place is packed, and I know the food’s good, but that’s about all I know.”
It was Lordo and Gambaro’s grandfather, Stefano Gambaro, a native of Genoa, Italy, who opened the bakery in 1924. It’s become a destination for sweet treats, and always been proudly cash-only. Favazza envisioned bringing the neighborhood landmark into the new century. He sees huge potential for online sales, a wholesale operation, and more. “I want to grow this thing,” he says. “Let’s talk about things we can do to keep the traditions and keep it authentic, but let’s step on the gas a little bit and get this thing to grow.” He says Lordo sometimes seemed interested in those ideas, but other times not, describing it as a “Jekyll and Hyde situation.”
Favazza is no stranger to the Hill or to litigation. A lawyer himself, he previously bought the rights to the beloved sandwich shop Amighetti’s in 2016, but ended up in a dispute with the shop’s franchisee on the Hill related to, among other things, whether its pepperoncinis should have their tops cut off. When the franchisee tried to reopen under the new name but some of the same menu items, Favazza sued. The franchisee later closed the shop, blaming the closure on the costs of the legal battle.
In early 2023, Favazza opened a new Amighetti’s location just a few blocks away. Three years ago, Favazza also acquired another local institution: Hank’s Cheesecakes.
George Mahe and Ryan Krull contributed reporting to this story.
