Buono's Italian Bakery
Old world know-how meets modern techniques!
559 Hartford Avenue, Providence
(401) 421-4554
www.buonositalianbakery.com
arnie.buonosbakery@gmail.com
Buono's has some really good pizza strips—nice and chewy and layered with a generous amount of zesty tomato sauce. And they're cheap, only a buck-fifty for three eight-inch strips (as of 2010)
There's been a bakery on this spot since at least 1918 and up until 1989 it was owned by the Monda family and was known, naturally, as Monda's. A pair of stone-built hearth ovens allowed the family to turn out "golden brown crusty loaves of bread" the old-fashioned way, earning them (according to the Buono's website) the sobriquet "King of Bread." The Mondas retired in 1987 and in '89 sold the business to brothers Arnold and Frank Buono and their father-in-law Dan Amadio.
The Buonos use many of the same methods and recipes that served the Mondas so well for so long, and also introduced modern methods and equipment where appropriate. Arnold Buono even went to Minneapolis, Minnesota, to train at the National Baking Center. This mixture of old and new apparently works out well; the Rhode Island House of Representatives passed a declaration on October 2, 1997, naming Buono's as "Rhode Island's Best Bread."
Buono's is open Tuesday to Friday, 7am-5:30pm; Saturday, 7am-4:30pm; and Sunday, 7am-12:30pm.