Maria’s Pastry Shop Closing its Doors

Maria’s North End Pastry Shop on 46 Cross St. has decided to close up shop after 50 years of servicing the neighborhood and thousands of other shoppers.

The Italian bakery, known for some of the City’s finest cannoli and other pastries will close the store on Sept. 15.

Owner Maria Merola has worked at the shop since 1970, when it was still owned by Modern Pastry, and bought the business in 1982 and has operated it since then.

Maria after working for five decades and owning her own shop for 37 years, has decided to close up the popular pastry shop, said she’s done.

Maria still lives in the same building on Fleet Street since she moved to Boston in 1968.

Having no sidewalk for five years, through overwhelming construction in the area including the Big Dig, was forced to lay off some of her workforce and reinvent her business because of the loss of street traffic.

The North End business was good for the shop, and the business was good for the neighborhood.

While she claims the business is still good and she will miss it, she plans to remain in the North End in retirement and plans to take a trip to the South of Naples to the farm she grew up on. Her youngest brother is there watching the farm so she plans to go home for a while.

Many of her steady local customers told the Review they were “sadden by the closing of the shop and that too many of the original community businesses are closing forever.”