Because of this, when Termini Bros. announced on Instagram that it would be replacing the iconic black-and-white tile floor at their flagship bakery on South 8th Street, they were flooded with customers begging for a piece of their historic flooring.
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"It was just tremendously humbling," says Joseph Termini, a co-owner of Termini Bros. "I was like, 'Everybody, stop all the demolition! Stop!' We found out that people are really connected to this, so we stopped everything. The whole demolition crew then turned into a salvage crew. We saved as much as we could."
Termini says the tiles were in terrible disrepair and they had to come up.
They spent six months searching for the perfect replacement penny tile to match the signature black-and-white look of the bakery flooring.
That new tile, which they sourced in South Philadelphia, will go down next week.
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As for the original, nostalgic tiles, they know that so many customers want a piece.
"We have to take it apart, obviously, because they come in sheets," Termini says. "We have to find some sort of packaging that we can place it into to preserve it. We're going to make it available to all of our customers. We realize how important it is to them, and that makes it important to us."
Store officials promised that they will let everyone know when people can pick up their porcelain memories, 101 years of cannolis, and Christmas Eve mornings for posterity.