Rapacki & Sons

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East Meadow Plaza
1914 Hempstead Tpke.
East Meadow, NY 11554-1712
516-683-6190

When John and Frances Rapacki opened their Uniondale deli in 1966, they were happy to sell the wares of the myriad local manufacturers of Polish specialties. The store expanded to locations in New Hyde Park, Maspeth (since closed) and East Meadow, but at the same time, many of Rapacki's suppliers were going out of business. Products from surviving firms began to decline in quality, and so sons Frank and Raymond learned how to smoke meat, make pierogies and bake babkas.

Not only did they sell the products in their stores, they began a wholesale business. In 2004, Rapacki & Sons moved into a 10,000-square-foot facility in Lindenhurst where, said Frank, the president, "We make 90 percent of everything we sell." And they are dogged when it comes to quality.

Back in the '70s, the Rapackis' Brooklyn babka supplier closed. The bakers themselves moved on to other bakeries, but gradually the recipe became a shadow of its former self. "We couldn't find a babka that had the right flavor, that had enough cheese. We wanted that recipe," Frank said.

In the early '90s, Rapacki began doing its own baking. Raymond, the brother with culinary training, spent two years on the babka situation and came up with a recipe that satisfied everyone. A production specialist was brought in to scale up the recipe so it could be reproduced in quantity.