The Oswego Tea Company’s cinnamon-raisin bread has a following in the U.S. and in several countries
By Tom and Jerry Caraccioli
When you walk into The Oswego Tea Company, one of the first things you will notice is a map of the United States with hundreds of thumb tacks marking various places throughout the country. As you scan the room, you’ll also see an area for drinking tea.
Twenty-five years ago, Lisa Shaw had a vision.
After she and her husband, Warren, bought a building on Oswego’s east side of town, the Shaws initially opened it to house Ontario Outfitters, a clothing store that offered off-price, discount clothes before the days of TJMaxx and Marshalls. The clothing store anchored the building. But Shaw’s vision and ultimate goal was to create and own a café–eatery in which customers could eat, visit, enjoy coffee or tea at their leisure and not feel rushed.
“When my husband and I would go out, we liked to sit and hang,” Shaw explained. “Having a meal is an event, a three-hour thing. Most restaurants want to flip tables. We always felt like we were being rushed. We also observed that places would always offer coffee after a meal but not tea. I’m a tea drinker.”
Thus, The Oswego Tea Company became the place she envisioned.
Despite offering items new to the palettes of most Oswego diners, including Belgian waffles, French toast, eggs benedict, a “Kitchen sink” — loaded home fries with a lot of cheeses and meats, eggs and sausage, covered in your choice of gravy sauce — not many people had found their way to East First Street and The Oswego Tea Company. Finding a way to pay the bills became her motivation.
Early on Shaw knew she wanted to create raisin bread. After one whole summer of tinkering in the kitchen, her recipe for the bread finally evolved. A plan to develop a wholesale business also was baked.
As the café grew in popularity one particular item on its menu became recognized worldwide — The Oswego Tea Company’s cinnamon-raisin bread.
After attending the Syracuse Regional Market (farmers’ market), where they were able to share and sell their new cinnamon-raisin bread, people began to ask where they could get more. “They would ask where we were located,” Shaw recalled. “We grew our business from that. It was strategic. We wanted to get the word out so people would come. After a while, people would come to Oswego and ask if we ever thought about going ‘there.’ So, we would go, knock on the door or make a cold call.
“We sold the bread to Dahl’s Diner, now a bakery in Scriba. They were one of the first. We also sold to Mimi’s in Fulton. These places were very kind and took a chance. They would take 20 loaves a week and it helped pay the bills.”
During the holidays, the famed bread, which accounts for 25% of TOTC’s overall business in Central New York, is particularly popular.
“The holidays are crazy,” Shaw said. “Christmastime is very big. The cinnamon raisin bread makes for great gifts. We provide special gift baskets filled with bread, tea and other goodies. People will come in during the holidays and provide their office with bread. We’ve had single orders of up to 36 loaves of bread for office gifts. We make sure to remind people to contact us several weeks ahead if they plan to make a big order for the holidays.”
The cinnamon-raisin bread is so good it’s been exported to all 50 states, as well as Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, parts of Europe including Ireland, Spain, Ukraine and Germany; Asia including Nepal and Russia; Costa Rica in Central America and Afghanistan in the Middle East.
It’s so good that if Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Neil Young had had some of The Oswego Tea Company’s cinnamon-raisin bread, he may have changed the lyrics to his iconic 1969 song “Cinnamon Girl” to:
I wanna have more cinnamon bread
I could be happy the rest of my life
With that cinnamon bread
Today, The Oswego Tea Company bakes 300 loaves of bread a week for delivery and another 100 for restaurants and cafés in Oswego. They make weekly deliveries to about 10 places in Central New York, including Baldwinsville Diner, two locations of Stella’s in Syracuse, two locations of the Gardenview Diner in Liverpool and Clay, as well as two grocery stores and other restaurants depending on the time of the year.
Lisa Shaw’s vision and motivation for the building she and her husband bought 25 years ago was always tea. These days Shaw and her daughter, Sarah, run The Oswego Tea Company and can boast about its selection of 100 teas from around the world including favorites: Honey Lemongrass, Le Marche Spice Black (Spain), Versaille Lavender Earl Grey (France) and Japanese import Sencha Kyoto Cherry Rose.
But as the map in the front of the café shows, their cinnamon-raisin bread, made right here on the shores of Lake Ontario, is also renowned and enjoyed by people all over the world.
Tom and Jerry Caraccioli are freelance writers originally from Oswego, who have co-authored two books: “STRIKING SILVER: The Untold Story of America’s Forgotten Hockey Team” and “BOYCOTT: Stolen Dreams of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games.”
