Colm Shanahan grabs a loaf of Irish soda bread for a customer at the Milltown bakery, a borough landmark that closed three years ago but reopened last week.

"People just love this place," said Shanahan, who decided to reopen the bakery this summer after selling it three years ago. "It's amazing. I couldn't believe how many people came."

A grand opening for the bakery, famous for Irish soda bread that had people lined up around the block every St. Patrick's Day, is slated for Sept. 2. Free samples will be served.

But residents like Dorothy Klesitz aren't waiting that long to get a tasty treat from their beloved North Main Street bakery. Tuesday marked her 76th birthday, and she planned to buy a Shanahan's cake to celebrate.

John Shanahan, longtime owner of the Main Street bakery, prepares to bake some bread Friday morning.

Other customers echoed Klesitz's excitement, said Shanahan, who heard numerous comments about the bakery's heyday.

"Every couple of hours we get people telling us those same stories," he said. "It's nice to be able to make people that happy."

Shanahan has spent the past few months preparing to reopen the bakery. He painted the new shop green and yellow, added crown molding and hung several pictures taken by his wife of 25 years, Dawn.

And he's been baking, too. While the most popular treats like scones and kifleys will still be on the menu, Shanahan is scaling back from the 150 items he used to prepare. He will now have two display cases instead of four.

Customer Peggy Bojtos picks out some goodies.

Shanahan posted a few fliers and put out a sidewalk sign Friday that read: "Look who's back. Shanahan's Bakery Café." For the most part, though, he has been banking on word of mouth to announce the reopening.

"I'm getting anxious to get this going," he said. "I wanted to get my feet wet before it got too busy, and I'm pulling my hair out. Even if you know this business, it's hard. Any small business is tough."

Shanahan wondered if the bakery could again be a hot spot in Milltown. His butterflies, however, went away when more than 200 residents, some on the verge of tears, showed up on the first day of business.

"It was mostly the old familiar faces, people in town," Shanahan said. "Everybody was so excited that I'm back. Some were almost crying. It felt really good."

The history of Shanahan's stretches back nearly four decades, when John Shanahan, the family patriarch, moved from Ireland and worked at the bakery. He later bought the business in 1969 when the previous owner went bankrupt and moved to Florida.

His wife, Kathleen, and all five of their children worked at the family business. But Colm Shanahan, who started out washing pans at age 12 and spent his teens learning the trade, was the only one to make the bakery his bread and butter.

Three years ago, Colm Shanahan decided to sell the business, saying he needed a break from the daily grind. "This is a lot of work, and I've done it my whole life," he said.

In the meantime, he became a bakery manager at Rat's Restaurant in Hamilton, where he was considered a "dinosaur" because he can make breads and desserts from scratch, he said. Eventually, he started to miss owning his own bakery.

"I was always going to work. I felt like I couldn't take a day off," he said. "It was a lot, and I thought, 'Why am I doing this for them when I had my own business?"

Colm Shanahan discussed reopening the bakery, and his family approved of the idea. His parents still owned the property where the original bakery was located, and they still live above on the second floor.

Like those in town, they've watched the storefronts change in recent years. A hair salon, Milazzo and Mattey, now occupies the bakery's first space, and a nail salon and boutique have been added.

The new Shanahan's Bakery Café is located in the rear of the building, adjacent to a small parking lot. A bright blue awning hangs above the shop to alert customers, who have been heading to the hair salon out of habit.

"This is a great immigrant story, a total American Dream," Dawn Shanahan said, sipping a cup of coffee behind the counter. "It's a wonderful kind of tradition here. There's this sense of history here. People are nostalgic for this."

This time around, more competition abounds in Milltown and surrounding areas. Instead of visiting local bakeries, many people nowadays buy specialty cakes and pastries from nearby supermarkets or chain doughnut shops because it's convenient.

"There's a lot of competition," Colm Shanahan said. "It's a big risk, a big investment. I've got to be a little better than all of them."

To stay ahead in the baking game, he uses all-natural ingredients, including nonbleached flour and butter. In addition, all of his baked goods are made from scratch, not frozen and later defrosted in an oven or microwave.

"You can't get good cake because there are no bakeries," Dawn Shanahan said. "We're hoping to have that core of people who go that extra mile because they appreciate the difference here. They appreciate quality. We're hoping those people will stand behind us."

Shanahan's is located at 84 N. Main St. Business hours are 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday. For more information, call the bakery at (732) 846-2888 or visit its Web site, www.shanahanbakery.com.

Photo by: Scott Pilling -Sentinel Staff  Photographer