Badali’s Fruit Market to celebrate 75 years on Bayview Ave.

Dom and Sal Badali with their late mom Lena

Badali’s Fruit Market will mark a signal event on Bayview Ave this June. It will be 75 years from the day Leo and Sam Badali, and their mother, opened the  fruit market at No. 1587 on the happy street that is now known as South Bayview. Badali’s is easily the longest surviving business on the street and its generations of customers is enormous. Some remember when the angle parking was free. None can resist popping into the store, now run by brothers Sal and Dom to get some expert advice on produce and share the local gossip. To mark the anniversary Sal, Dom and their mother, Lena, will throw a party at the store on Saturday, June 15, 2013. Now 90, Lena continues to own a share of the business and has a lively interest in things.

HERE IN 1896

The Badali family took root in Canada in 1896 when four brothers, Leo, Gus, John  and Sal, arrived from Italy. Gus, grandfather to the current owners, had two sons, Leo and Sal. It was Leo and Sal who by 1938 had scraped together enough money to purchase one of the recently constructed shops on Bayview  By a fascinating quirk of history, this was the same year that the Roman Catholic Parish of St. Anselm’s was founded. There was no church so Father Francis Caufield held mass among the melons and other produce at Badali’s until the first St. Anselm’s. a smallish yellow brick church, was finished. Sal and Dom are true sons of Leaside, having grown up in their father’s home on Macnaughton Rd.

HOW HOME WAS PURCHASED

But as Italians, the Badalis didn’t always feel so welcome. When Leo first tried to buy the Macnaughton home he was told by the Realtor that the owner didn’t want to sell to an Italian. It’s a shadow on the history of Leaside. But the outcome reflects the ingenuity of Leo Badali who persuaded a non-Italian friend to buy the home and then re-sell it to the family. Which is why the modest little fruit market at 1587 Bayview has a lot to say about us all, small as it is.  Mark June 15 on the calendar and we’ll see you at Badali’s.