Thursday, October 1, 2026
When Samantha Caltagirone and Madison Kaer started working as counter girls at Roe’s Casa Dolce on Sunrise Highway, it was just another job to get them through college. Little did they know that after years of working the cash register, they would become entrepreneurs and co-owners of the business.
For residents who remember, Roe’s Casa Dolce was a bakery that offered breads, pastries, cakes and sweets. Under the stewardship of Caltagirone and Kaer, it became the Flour Shoppe Café, featuring a new menu built from scratch with the help of chef John Maher. The women’s journey to owners overseeing the transformation of their business involved lots of hard work, some luck, and the support of friends and family.
Caltagirone, 27, had worked at Roe’s since 2006, and Kaer, 23, started in 2008. Caltagirone worked part-time at the bakery while studying speech therapy at Molloy College. She had a second part-time job at an insurance agency in Massapequa.
After college, she began working full-time at the insurance office along with Kaer, while they continued to work nights and weekends at the bakery. When the second owners of Roe’s decided to sell in 2013, the two young women decided that it was time to leave their beloved bakery behind, and said goodbye. But things didn’t turn out quite the way they planned. The bakery’s third owner, John Nassaur, did not have a food industry background, and the business struggled.
After only a year away from the bakery, the women were tipped off by friends and old customers that Nassaur might be willing to sell, and they decided to try to buy the business. But that was anything but easy. The negotiations took nine months, and potential deals fell through nine or 10 times, according to Caltagirone. “We had a lot of heartbreaks,” she said.
Compounding the challenge, he baker whom they had recruited to manage the kitchen dropped out. The pair weren’t sure whether they should persevere, but their families encouraged them to keep going, telling them that these kinds of opportunities are rare.
Finally, they caught a break. Through friends of friends, Kaer and Caltagirone managed to secure the services of three bakers in time for their purchase and the reopening of the bakery in June 2015, and the pair left their jobs at the insurance agency.
But they faced yet another daunting challenge. Roe’s wasn’t just a storefront shop, but also a commercial bakery, selling batches of baked goods to other businesses. Under previous management, the commercial side of the business diminished over the years until it was non-existent, and it soon became clear that the storefront alone wouldn’t be enough to sustain them.
In the fall of 2015, when the renamed Flour Shoppe Bakery had been open only three months but its future was already looking bleak, the women got another break. After meeting chef John Maher and doing some out-of-the-box thinking, Kaer and Caltagirone decided to turn the shop into a full-service, all-day café. The idea was to create a menu whose offerings could be made from scratch every day, in limited quantities to ensure consistent quality and less waste.
“Rockville Centre is a foody town,” said Caltagirone. “We needed something fresh, something simple but extraordinary.”
The bakery closed for three weeks in late 2015 while its owners figured out this delicate balancing act. When it reopened as a café, reaction was mixed. “A couple of our regulars had a lot of faith in us,” Caltagirone said, “so they were willing to give us a shot.”
Though some customers were surprised by the new menu, word of mouth has spread in the months since, and Kaer and Caltagirone have found new customers who have warmed up to the new menu selection.
“I love the atmosphere,” said Diane Masciale of Rockville Centre, a customer and a fellow businesswoman. “I love the fact that it’s run by two women who are making a stab at it.”
The women work hard, often staying at the café until 1 a.m., only to open up six hours later. This month marks a year since the bakery’s latest transformation, and its owners report that its future now looks bright. “We couldn’t have even prayed for business like this,” said Caltagirone. “It’s great!”
