For 55 years, Aida’s Bakery in Woodbridge has been making the finest baked goods and become a treasured Vaughan tradition.

Woodbridge is, thankfully, still a pretty quiet place at four in the morning. Of course, lights are burning at essential services such as hospitals, police and fire stations as front-line workers continue to do heroes’ work. But for the most part, aside from the odd family of raccoons in search of food, one of the country’s most thriving communities is still and calm in those dark early hours.

The exception is Aida’s Pine Valley Bakery at 830 Roundtree Dairy Rd., where the lights are bright at this hour and it is a beehive of activity six days a week. There is a reason why early risers pick up a freshly made croissant, muffin or cookies on their way to the office at 7 a.m. Owner Nick Mastrandrea and the team at his family-owned and-operated bakery, Aida’s, including his 84-year-old aunt, have been hard at work.

City Life saw this middle-of-the-night magic firsthand, as our interview and photoshoot at Aida’s Pine Valley Bakery was scheduled for — you guessed it — 4 a.m., so we didn’t impede in any way the real work Mastrandrea and his team were doing for their faithful customers.

“She is busy working; no time to waste for her,” says Mastrandrea in the midst of a verbal back-and-forth with his aunt in what can only be described as controlled chaos. “She does the early shift, and she gets upset when I send her home at nine or ten o’clock as she wants to work until twelve. And my mom — she’s turning 75 this year — she usually starts at ten or eleven, and when I try to give her a day off she also gets upset, and she’s here until we close.”

It has been this way at Aida’s Bakery since Nick’s father, family patriarch Giuseppe Mastrandrea first opened Aida’s Pine Valley Bakery in his late teens in 1970. A talented Italian baker, innovator and leader, he created a family- centric business that promotes the love of original Italian savoury sweets and treats, the comfort of family and the company of good friends. Fifty-five years later, fresh ingredients, artistic food creations and soulful family pride remain the foundations of the business, along with tremendous attention to detail.

“I did architecture in school and graphic design, and so did my brother,” says Nick Mastrandrea. “My dad was very meticulous, so every little detail here counts. Even how you serve the customer, how you greet the customer, saying hello or remembering their name, that’s so important. You build relationships, so it’s more like a family. So now, even having our own products is nice to do. Four or five years ago, we switched to our own brand of specially-made coffees to support local suppliers and supply fresher products for everybody.”

Besides the incredible smells that greet you, the sense of family is palpable throughout Aida’s, with framed family photos and even some handwritten recipes from Giuseppe on the walls. Giuseppe passed away 18 years ago and his son took over the reins with a strong sense of history. “We renovated a few years ago, but since we have been here so long, we wanted to preserve the history, so it’s sort of like a family collage of that history and the bakery,” says Mastrandrea, proudly giving the City Life team a tour of the premises.

“EVERY LITTLE DETAIL HERE COUNTS. EVEN HOW YOU SERVE THE CUSTOMER, HOW YOU GREET THE CUSTOMER, SAYING HELLO OR REMEMBERING THEIR NAME, THAT’S SO IMPORTANT.”

There is not much staff turnover at Aida’s as most employees have been with the business for many years, even many decades. “Honesty and responsibility and a strong work ethic — my mom and dad were like that,” says Mastrandrea, and that’s what he first looks for in an employee. “People don’t see the behind-the-scenes. Bakery work is early mornings. It’s dedication, and frankly, it’s hard work. But with our open concept our customers see how many people work here, that we’re joking and laughing in the back and that we’re a team who enjoy our jobs.”

Being part of the greater Vaughan community has always played a central and important role at Aida’s Bakery. “It’s very important because your community supports you,” says Mastrandrea. “Without them, you don’t grow, you don’t establish yourself, and our community has always been behind us. Schools have fundraisers or events, and we do food for them or gift certificates. We also donate to the charity Creating Alternatives, and profits from the sales of our T-shirts, hats and bags we give to them. Everybody knows us, and they are not afraid to ask us for help in doing an event or something like an Italian social club. That’s very important, and we’re always available to them, and it has always been that way.”

There are probably many of us who, at one point, tried our hand (or oven mitt) at baking. It is one of the first skills we can experiment with in the kitchen as children. It might be a passing phase or the beginning of a lifelong passion. We watch shows, online clips or in-person masters such as those at Aida’s Bakery and imagine how tasty our creations will be — how fluffy, delicate, buttery and soft our pastries will taste, or how warm and perfectly chewy those cookies will turn out to be.

Inevitably, however, there will be few of us who can master the taste, texture and quality of the master bakers, and we finally realize what a skilled craft true baking is. Simply put, it is a delicate art in a kitchen filled with very heavy-duty ovens, tools and machinery. Baking is a balance of heavy and light — a dash of sugar here, more flour there — at all times working without a net. You get one shot when the actual baking begins, and the results never lie.

There is no “getting close” in baking — it’s not horseshoes or hand grenades. There is no “that’s sorta good” when it comes to baking. Baking is thumbs-up or thumbs-down, it worked or it didn’t. Baking is hard, which makes the daily mastery at Aida’s Bakery — that four-in-the-morning artistry — even more remarkable. Stable, dependable and genuinely friendly, with the freshest quality delivered at every visit, Aida’s Pine Valley Bakery is a proud and valuable member of the greater Vaughan community, even when no one else is awake.

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