Traditional Queens met Modern Queens with tremendous results recently.
The Instagram account Astoria Storefronts posted a video about the borough’s oldest bakery on Dec. 2 – and it went viral.
The roughly-90-second clip about La Guli Pastry Shop had accrued more than 234,000 views, 8,500 likes, 480 comments and 4,800 shares as of Christmas Eve. (And of course, the numbers continue to climb.)
La Guli Owner Maria Notaro talks about her grandfather and his brothers who immigrated from Sicily’s Palermo and founded the bakery at 29-15 Ditmars Blvd. in 1937, when the area was mostly farmland. She also shows some of her popular items, including Sfogliatella, Cannoli, Napoleon, Chocolate Mousse, and Strawberry Shortcake.
Here are a few responses with no grammatical corrections.
“A staple in Astoria , such history . Iconic. I remember the owner always sitting in the back on a chair . My two favs rainbow cookies and a Spumoni ice /half chocolate ice. I could taste it now,” reads one comment.
“My favorite place,” exclaims another. “The fresh bread my dad would bring home every Thursday. Fifty years later its still our family favorite.”
Then there’s: “I worked there as a teenager! I lived right around the corner! The chocolate cream cannoli is to die for! Wow! That brought back memories.”
Victor Prado runs Astoria Storefronts as part of his project manager job with Neighborhood 360°, a Small Business Service program that Queens Economic Development Corporation administers in Astoria.
“When we posted it, we only had about 1,000 followers, but it blew up because so many people love the place,” he opined. “Many of the commenters have great memories of going — and even working — there. It shows the power of social media to do good.”
Prado, who organizes promotional activities such as dessert crawls, is offering to film and post videos of other Astoria businesses for free. Contact him via Astoria Storefronts.
Images: La Guli Pastry Shop