Bell Alley Soft Pretzels: the coal-fired shop that fed South Reading for 74 years (1945–2019)

Tucked behind Saints Cyril and Methodius R.C. Church along the narrow, brick-paved run of Bell Alley, a few steps off 613 Laurel Street, a little coal oven turned out hand-twisted soft pretzels at dawn for generations. Neighbors knew the cadence by heart—mix at 4:00 a.m., first hot tray around 5:30 a.m., a steady stream of regulars through early afternoon, and prices that seemed frozen in time. The place answered to more than one name—Reading Hard & Soft Pretzel Bakery on the paperwork, Bell Alley Soft Pretzels in everyday talk—but to South Reading it was simply “the pretzel shop.”

Reading Hard Soft Bakery

A wartime start—and an oven that never changed

Reading Hard & Soft Pretzel was launched in 1945 by Joseph A. Dmochowski. According to Berks County deed records, he bought 613 Laurel Street from Joseph and Lucy Albert on March 14, 1946. The Laurel Street bakery predated Dmochowski. The Alberts—the “A” in ATV Bakery—had earlier opened Alberti’s Bakery at the site and later joined forces with their rivals, the Tomasi and Vecchio families, to form ATV Bakery at 36 S. Third St., said Brad Albert, who co-owns ATV with his brother, Joe.

Dmochowski experimented with both hard and soft pretzels that first year, but the neighborhood decided for him: soft pretzels sold out; hard ones didn’t. From then on, “soft” was the house style.

At the heart of the shop was a coal-fired, brick-lined deck oven—about 13 feet wide by 15 feet deep—that never left the premises and never modernized beyond necessity. Most of the line was scavenged from a junkyard in 1945, then cleverly maintained, later converted from chain link to a motorcycle chain so parts were easier to source. The heat, the method, and the flavor profile stayed remarkably constant for more than seven decades.

A deeper lineage at 613 Laurel

Bread had been coming out of this address long before Dmochowski’s pretzels. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Charles Dal(l)wig operated a bakery here; an F. X. Buss, identified as a baker, appears at the address in 1884; and in 1912 Mrs. Matteo G. Albert bought the property—another thread tying the site to Reading’s old baking families and eventually to ATV Bakery at 36 S. Third St. When Dmochowski fired his first coal, he stepped into a workspace already burnished by decades of flour and heat.

The routine: flour, water, malt, yeast—then hands and coal

The formula was spare: flour, water, malt, yeast—no salt in the mix; salt went on the exterior after shaping and dipping. Dough blocks rode a short conveyor that didn’t twist for you—that was all handwork at the end of the belt. Every pretzel was hand-twisted, set to rise, dipped in soda water, and launched into the coal heat for 15–18 minutes. The baker worked with 10-foot paddles to place and retrieve trays from the back of the deep deck. The first batch hit the counter before six; on a good day the oven held a friendly, steady ~400°F.

Shelly

In 1974, Shelly L. Coulter—then 11 years old—took an after-school job with Dmochowski. He became a mentor; she became indispensable. Over the years she mixed, twisted, loaded, and repaired; she could nurse the coal bed, fix balky machinery, and call customers by name. By the 1980s, the routine felt time-capsuled: doors before dawn, pretzels ready at 5:30 a.m., open until 2:30 p.m. most days (2:00 p.m. on Saturdays). In 2012, Shelly and her husband, Michael, purchased the bakery from the founder’s family—an act of loyalty as much as ownership.

Shelly L. Coulter

Prices that belonged to another era

For years, a roughly 4-inch classic twist cost 40¢, or $4.50 a dozen—a neighborhood kindness that didn’t always pencil out. The shop’s best days were long and busy: 200–300 dozen sold in earlier eras, especially when school orders and neighborhood foot traffic were strong. Regulars built rituals around the oven’s schedule—lifeguards from the old Seventh & Laurel pool grabbing hot pretzels after shifts, office runners ferrying warm bags to dentists’ and doctors’ lounges, and families marking Saturday mornings by the bagful.

A changing neighborhood—and a determined baker

As South Reading aged and foot traffic ebbed, and as franchise pretzel chains multiplied around the region, daily volume drifted downward. Running earlier and earlier into the red, Shelly considered closing in 2011—and again later—only to be pulled back by waves of loyal customers and their stories. “Times are changing,” she admitted on local TV, “but” (true to form) she would still be there at 4:00 a.m., coaxing the coal. Attempts in 2017 to bring in partners fell through by April of 2018, and with no sustainable path forward, the end crept closer.

The last batch (March 2019)

A photo captured a “closing” sign on the door on March 19, 2019; later listings marked the shop permanently closed. After 74 years of soft pretzels in that coal heat, the oven finally went dark. Dmochowski himself had passed in 2012 at age 91, proud that the bakery would carry on; for seven more years it did—on the same equipment, with the same recipe, under the same roof—until the numbers simply wouldn’t cooperate. The alley remained quiet; the memories stayed vivid.

Reading Hard Soft Bakery Closing