Known for making chocolate candies with olive and olive flavor, António Melgão closed the Capri pastry shop, located in one of the main streets of Montemor-o-Novo, in March, when the State of Emergency was declared, due to the new coronavirus (SARS) -CoV-2) that causes covid-19 disease.
It was “two months” behind closed doors, in which, he says, “we felt some difficulties”, because “both my wife and I are the managing partners of the pastry shop and we were not entitled to any support”, he stresses.
Later, he reports, the pastry shop opened “only with the take-away service”, but “selling cakes out is a little difficult”, so he decided to turn to friends who work in the kitchen and who taught him how to make pizzas and pasta.
The new service still does not allow “a full house sale, but it helps a little”, admits Capri’s pastry chef and managing partner.
“I started by making pizzas to sell out on weekends and it even went well”, but, after lifting the containment measures, “we opened up and went back to what was normal, only with a very large reduction in sales”, says.
To “compensate for the reduction in cake sales”, the pastry chef says that he decided to resume the pizza service outside and prepared the room and the terrace to receive customers for Friday dinners, lunches and dinners on Saturday and Sunday lunches.
“In addition to the normal pastries, we now have an additional service, which are pizzas and pastas”, which are made “with fresh ingredients and whenever possible purchased from nearby producers”, he points out. And customers are satisfied, he says.
A pizza with ingredients from the Alentejo açorda
The menu features four varieties of pizzas and many other types of pasta, but the highlight is the Alentejo pizza, which is made with the ingredients of the Alentejo açorda: coriander, olive oil, garlic, bread, cod and egg.
António Melgão says that, before the crisis caused by the pandemic, the pastry business was no longer running smoothly, in the last year, due to the renovation works of the street where the commercial space is located.
“Now, after the reopening, I would say that we are going for 20 or 30% of what was before,” he adds, admitting that if you do “three or four dinners and sell three or four more pizzas outside” it is already positive: “It’s more the one that will help ”, he notes.
According to the businessman, the bakery resorted to a simplified lay-off and its workers are still at home, with the establishment’s service being provided by him, his wife and his two daughters.
“We want this service to be always”, because “we see that it can serve to increase the volume of business in the pastry”, emphasizes the person in charge, admitting that the possibility of “creating one or two more jobs”.
Among the regular customers of the pastry and confectionery service, Manuel Nunes states that he also started to visit the space because of the pizzas, especially the one with the ingredients of the açorda, which he says is “a spectacle and a must”.
“The new reality forced us to do so and we are satisfied with the quality that the pastry offers us”, he shoots.
On the terrace, Dulce Silva says that she had already been a “long time” customer of the commercial space and that she was looking for the establishment “for the pastry shop”.
“I came to try the masses. I had already tried the pizzas. Are great. Despite everything, because of what they went through, they decided to open it in another way and I think it has been good for them and for us as customers ”, he considers.
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