June 01, 2025
Local News | Kane County Chronicle
Local News

Bakery is first street-level renter in The Plaza

By TIM KANE

Rob Winner – rwinner@kcchronicle.com On Thursaday afternoon, Emma DeJure (left), 16, and her mother Glori DeJure, of Campton Hills, look at all the pastries, cookies and cakes available at Il Giardino del Dolce, a new bakery located at The Plaza in St. Charles. 06/18/2009

ST. CHARLES – Two-year-old Valentina Pizzoferrato runs up to the door when you enter the family bakery and asks you to try her favorite cookie.

Elena Pizzoferrato, 36, Valentina's mother, said she remembers her younger sister, Angela Ventrella, in a bassinet in the back of a the family-owned Italian bakery on Harlem Avenue in Chicago.

Pizzoferrato said her daughters, Valentina and 2-month-old Alessandra, are growing up the same way, the back room of the family business.

"Will they go into the bakery business?" she said. "Probably."

The bakery is Il Giardino del Dolce [The Garden of the Sweets], at 131 S. 1st Street in downtown St. Charles. It's the first ground-level retail shop to open in the building commonly known as "The Plaza," which is part of as the First Street redevelopment project and also home to the city-owned parking garage

"I think the ownership has great vision knowing what will happen here," said Amy Egolf, executive director of the St. Charles Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Egolf said that the bakery has an established reputation and established clientele. The bakery's uniqueness will add to the downtown atmosphere, she added.

Pizzoferrato said the bakery is still a family-run  business. She has worked at the St. Charles location since the shop opened about a month ago. She runs the place with her sister, Angela Ventrella, 28.

Her brother, Enzo Ventrella, 37, and her mother, Maria Ventrella, work in the original Il Giardino del Dolce, which has been at its location at 2859 N. Harlem Avenue, Chicago, for nearly 25 years.

"We moved out west [to St. Charles] because that's where our customers were going," Pizzoferrato said. "My parents came over from Bari, Italy, the place where focaccia originated. Nobody makes focaccia like we do. We sell out every day."

Besides being a bakery, they make homemade Italian pizza and panini.  

"No turkey sandwiches here," Pizzoferrato said. "It's very Italian. We have the two types of prosciutto, Genoa salami and fresh boconcini." 

The shop is open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday.

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