Tradition drives the baking at Frangelli's

We always hear about the shiny, new food companies. The Spot is a series about the Philadelphia area's more established establishments and the people behind them.

There are donuts, and then there are doughnuts. One type is typically cake-based and covered with pretty toppings and endlessly Instagrammed; the other is less glamorous, a yeasted round glazed with sugar or filled with jelly. Doughnut purists tend to be loyal to the latter, and in Philadelphia you'll find them bellied up to the glass pastry case at Frangelli's in deep South Philly.

There's a new neon sign blinking in the window, heralding one fairly recent creation - the "Franolli," a doughnut/cannoli mash-up - but almost everything else on offer here tastes the same as it did a generation ago when current owner John Colosi lived across the street from Frangelli's original location at Ninth and Jackson. When the bakery moved in the mid '90s, it was into a building owned by Colosi's father at Ninth and Ritner. By the time Colosi bought the bakery in 2010, it had been part of his life for nearly 50 years.

He may dabble a bit in trends, but it never takes his attention away from what really drives this bakery: Tradition.

Tell me about how you came to be the owner.

I bought the business from the previous owner, Tony Frangelli, in 2010. It was my dad who heard Frangelli's was for sale. At the time, I was in construction.

How did you learn baking?

Tony Frangelli taught me as well as a couple other bakers that stayed here. Before I bought the business, I used to come in for maybe six months and watch and learn just to see how things operated. Once I actually bought the business, Tony would come in once a week, but we had an older baker, guy named Ziggy in his mid-70s, and he'd been baking since he was 9 years old. He's retired now.

You have both yeast doughnuts and cake doughnuts. Which is harder to make?

The yeast, but they are more popular with customers. Our jelly doughnuts are our most popular. We use a very high-quality jelly. It's a seedless black raspberry and it's all-natural jelly, no preservatives. It's the same that Tony always used.

Have you kept most things the same here?

Yes. I didn't change anything. We still make our own Italian cream, we make our own butter cream, we make our own chocolate icing. We make everything from scratch.

Let's talk about some of the new things. You guys are locally famous for the franolli.

Yes, that was my invention. The franolli is our hand-cut yeast doughnut. The same doughnut that we use for our jelly doughnut. We cut it in half and we put the filling from the cannoli inside the doughnut. We've been making it for two years now.

Where did you get the idea?

I stumbled upon it myself. I was making the cheese for the cannoli. I had it in the bowl from out of the mixer and I was hungry, so I ripped a piece of doughnut off, put the cheese on it, and went, 'Wow. Really good.' I let other people try it. . . . It was really good. Someone came in who knew someone who wrote for Zagat, and Zagat wrote an article on us. They have been very popular ever since.

How did it get its name?

I initially had the name 'donoli,' but as we were getting the publicity, I received a cease-and-desist letter from ShopRite up in northern New Jersey that had the name. I knew nothing about it, and it's not even the same product. So I had to change the name or fight ShopRite, and I can't beat ShopRite.

Don't you also do something with doughnuts and ice cream?

Yes, but I didn't create that. The ice cream doughnut was from back when I was a kid. But as Tony got up in years, he stopped doing it. The ice cream doughnut is that same yeast doughnut, and we cut that in half and we put hand-dipped chocolate and vanilla ice cream in the center. We only have them in warm weather, May to Octoberish.

Do you bake at home?

No, this is enough.

Frangelli's, 847 W. Ritner St., Philadelphia. Information: 215-271-7878 or www:frangellis.com

Joy Manning, a writer and editor who has covered food and restaurants in Philadelphia for more than decade, is also the executive editor of Edible Philly and Edible Jersey magazines. Also follow her on Instagram @joymanning.