SOMERVILLE - The routine has not changed much over the last century at Lyndell's Bakery, a culinary cornerstone in Somerville's Ball Square that is marking 120 years in business this week.
A worker still pulls a string behind the counter to flip the Now Serving number on the wall, prompting customers to eye the ticket they have pulled from a 75-year-old dispenser just inside the door. Bakers still arrive at 2 a.m. to pour batter into a 74-year-old, 125-quart Hobart mixer, lay dough into a 90-year-old presser for shaping, and place pastries into an 80-year-old convection oven with rotating shelves.
Offering sticky honey buns, moist cupcakes, and sheet cakes decorated to order, Lyndell's is a classic, full-service American bakery, a rare holdout in New England communities, said Roberta Dowling, founding director of The Cambridge School of Culinary Arts.
"That kind of bakery is declining, and that is unfortunate," she said. Increasingly, specialty and boutique European-style bakeries are taking root in the region.
Bill Galatis, who grew up in Somerville, bought the bakery in 2000. The co-owner of 35 Dunkin' Donuts franchises, Galatis learned quickly that it would be difficult and risky to make changes to the formula that had made Lyndell's a local institution.
"The more I hung around the bakery, the more I realized the kind of treasure it was," said Galatis, who now lives in Medford.
The bakery was founded in 1887 by the Lyndell family, Swedish immigrants whose first names Galatis has not been able to determine. In 1934, the Lyndells sold it to Eugene Klemm, who brought a German influence to the bakery's recipes. He sold it to Herman and Janet Kett in 1968. Galatis and a partner, Gary Bagarella, bought it in 2000 when the Ketts retired. (Bagarella sold his stake in the business to Galatis earlier this year.)
Galatis, the fourth owner of the bakery, toyed with replacing the mechanical ticket-distribution system with something more modern, but met with immediate resistance.
"I tried to change it, and people said 'Don't you dare,' " Galatis said yesterday, as workers handed out free cupcakes and cups of coffee. The cupcake giveaway was intended as a one-day promotion, but because snow kept most of the bakery's regulars away yesterday morning, he has extended it through today.
City employees, drawn to the bakery by the prospect of free cupcakes, had been showing up at work all day yesterday with boxes from Lyndell's, said Tom Champion, the city of Somerville's communications director.
Added Somerville Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone: "As you see squares and neighborhood business districts changing, it's always been this little place that survived any of the corporate changeovers, and has been a strong pillar of that particular neighborhood, going back decades.
"And they've got some really good cookies and cupcakes."
Galatis has made some changes to modernize his bakery's business practices. When he took over, Lyndell's was closed Sundays, a practice that dated to World War II, when the owners decided to close one day a week to limit their use of ingredients that were in short supply. Now, Sunday is the bakery's third-best day for sales.
The bakery also had a practice of not selling pastries with cream during the summer months, because a woman had once complained that her pastry turned bad after she left it in her car while she was shopping on a hot day. Galatis changed that, too.
But he preserved the things - the classic recipes, custom-decorated sheet cakes, even the retro storefront sign - that have kept sweet-toothed kids and nostalgic grown-ups coming back.
Virginia Hardy, who grew up in Somerville and lives in Burlington, said she worked at the Lyndell's counter in high school. Dropping in yesterday with her children to buy them some of the bakery's signature half-moon pastries, she admitted to being a little nervous when she heard seven years ago that the bakery had been sold.
"But it's still very good, and they've added some good things, too," she said.
Dowling, of the culinary arts school, has developed a more sophisticated palate in the years since she grew up in Somerville clamoring for Lyndell's sweet cupcakes and muffins. But the fond memories remain.
"I thought it was wonderful growing up," she said, "and if I was going to give my granddaughter a croissant or a muffin, she would prefer a muffin from Lyndell's."
