The Christie Brothers Opened This Saskatoon Bakery Three Years Before the Bessborough Was Built. Ninety-Four Years Later, the Muzzolini Family is Still Baking.
Christie's Mayfair Bakery opened on 33rd Street in Saskatoon in 1932 and has been a neighbourhood institution ever since. In 1966, Ennio and Janet Muzzolini purchased the bakery and raised their children inside it. Today, siblings Blair and Tracey Muzzolini carry the tradition forward — with artisan sourdough, wood-fired Neapolitan pizza from their Il Secondo location on Broadway, and Italian pastries crafted daily. Tracey holds credentials from the Bread Bakers Guild of America and competed at the 2007 Coupe Du Monde de la Boulangerie representing Team Canada.
August 14, 2026 · By Justin Plosz · Saskatoon, Saskatchewan · Business · 8 min read read
33rd Street, 1932: Three Years Before the Bessborough
The Christie brothers opened their bakery on 33rd Street in Saskatoon in 1932 — three years before the Bessborough Hotel opened downtown and anchored the city's skyline. At the time, Saskatoon was navigating the depths of the Great Depression, and a neighbourhood bakery on 33rd Street was exactly the kind of essential, grounded business that prairie communities kept alive through difficult years.
The Mayfair neighbourhood where the bakery sat was a working residential area west of downtown — the kind of place where people walked to their errands, where businesses were embedded in the fabric of daily life, and where a good loaf of bread mattered in a way that went beyond commerce. The Christie brothers understood that and built accordingly.
Decades passed. The bakery outlasted the Depression, the war years, the postwar boom. It became the kind of institution that generations of Saskatoon families took for granted in the best possible way — always there, always reliable, always the smell of fresh bread when you walked through the door. By 1966, the Christie brothers were ready to pass the keys to the next stewards.
1966: The Muzzolinis Take the Keys and Raise a Family in Flour
In 1966, Ennio and Janet Muzzolini purchased Christie's and began what would become a six-decade family tradition. The Muzzolinis raised their children inside the bakery — not as a metaphor, but literally. As soon as the children were old enough to walk, they were covered in flour dust. The bakery was home and business simultaneously, the way family-owned food businesses often are when they're working and when they're right.
Ennio and Janet built on what the Christie brothers had established, maintaining the neighbourhood identity of the bakery while deepening the family's relationship with 33rd Street and the Mayfair community. Two generations of Saskatoon families came through the door during the Muzzolini years — children who grew up eating Christie's bread becoming parents who brought their own children in, a cycle that is the best possible description of what a neighbourhood bakery is supposed to be.
When Blair and Tracey Muzzolini — Ennio and Janet's children — took over from their parents, they didn't walk into a struggling business looking for rescue. They walked into one of Saskatoon's most trusted names in food and asked themselves how to honour that while also making it their own.
Tracey Goes Out Into the World — and Comes Back Better
Tracey Muzzolini's path back to Christie's involved a journey that took her considerably further than 33rd Street. After growing up in the bakery, Tracey travelled to Australia and then went to Toronto, where she had the opportunity to work with Chef Susur Lee — one of Canada's most celebrated culinary figures, known for his precision, his depth of technique, and his synthesis of Eastern and Western flavour traditions.
That experience, Tracey has said, renewed and elevated her perspective on what food could be. She then went further, studying under world-class bakers at the Bread Bakers Guild of America — one of the premier professional baking education organizations in North America. In 2007, she competed at the Coupe Du Monde de la Boulangerie in Paris, representing Team Canada in the category of Baguette and Specialty Bread. The Coupe Du Monde — the World Cup of bread — is the most prestigious bread-baking competition in the world.
Tracey returned to Saskatoon with world-class credentials and a clear idea of what she wanted Christie's to become. She became one of the first bakers in Saskatoon to offer artisan sourdough breads — a deliberate choice to bring fermentation and long-leavened loaves to a prairie city that was ready for them. The approach was a statement: tradition isn't something stuck in time, and a ninety-year-old bakery can still do something for the first time.
Il Secondo and Saskatoon's First Wood-Fired Napoletana Pizza
Blair and Tracey's ambitions for the Christie's name didn't stop at the Mayfair location. They expanded to open Il Secondo on Broadway — a second location that brought Saskatoon its first wood-fired Napoletana-style pizza. The Napoletana tradition is one of the most demanding and specific in pizza-making: dough made to precise hydration, fermented for extended periods, cooked in a wood-fired oven at extremely high temperatures for 60 to 90 seconds, producing a charred, blistered crust with a tender, chewy interior that no conventional oven can replicate.
Il Secondo serves breakfast and lunch alongside its pizza program, with panini made from Christie's breads, coffee, tea, and a rotating selection of local Saskatchewan beers and wine. The menu reflects the same philosophy that drives the Mayfair bakery: made from scratch in-house, daily, using real techniques and real ingredients, without shortcuts.
The two locations together — the original 33rd Street bakery and Il Secondo on Broadway — give Saskatoon a Christie's presence across different neighbourhoods and different occasions. The Mayfair location for daily bread and morning pastries; Il Secondo for a sit-down lunch or a proper wood-fired pizza. Both express the same underlying idea: that honest, well-made food is the most lasting kind.
420 33rd Street West: What Ninety-Four Years of Baking Looks Like
Christie's Mayfair Bakery remains at 420 33rd Street West in Saskatoon's Mayfair neighbourhood — the same street the Christie brothers opened on in 1932. The building has changed over the decades, but the bakery's place in the neighbourhood has not. It is one of those businesses that has become part of the spatial memory of a city: a place people navigate toward without thinking, whose hours are part of the rhythm of their week.
The daily bread program at Christie's reflects Tracey's philosophy: tradition honoured, technique applied, always learning. The Kamut and Sunflower Sourdough — available on Tuesdays only — is a golden-crusted loaf with a tender, slightly nutty interior and crunchy sunflower seeds, the kind of bread that gives the word artisan an actual meaning. The Italian pastries, the sourdoughs, the baked goods made from scratch every day: Christie's is a European bakery that grew up on the Canadian prairies and belongs to both.
The Mayfair location is open Monday from 9 am to 7 pm, Tuesday through Friday from 8 am to 5 pm, and Saturday from 8 am to 4 pm. Christie's is closed on Sundays. Find them at 420 33rd Street West, Saskatoon, SK S7L 0V6. Phone: (306) 244-0506. Shop their breads and pastries online at christiesbakery.com, and follow their work on Instagram for what's coming out of the oven.
Key takeaways
- Christie's Mayfair Bakery has baked on 33rd Street in Saskatoon since 1932 — founded three years before the Bessborough Hotel opened downtown.
- The Muzzolini family has owned Christie's since 1966, spanning six decades and two generations of family ownership.
- Tracey Muzzolini represented Team Canada at the 2007 Coupe Du Monde de la Boulangerie (World Cup of Bread) in Paris and is a member and educator with the Bread Bakers Guild of America.
- Christie's was one of the first bakeries in Saskatoon to offer artisan sourdough breads, a direct result of Tracey's world-class training.
- Il Secondo on Broadway is Christie's second Saskatoon location, serving breakfast, lunch, and Saskatoon's first wood-fired Napoletana-style pizza.
- The Mayfair bakery at 420 33rd Street West is open Monday 9 am–7 pm, Tuesday–Friday 8 am–5 pm, Saturday 8 am–4 pm. Phone: (306) 244-0506. Website: christiesbakery.com.
Frequently asked questions
- When was Christie's Mayfair Bakery founded?
- Christie's Mayfair Bakery was founded in 1932 by the Christie brothers on 33rd Street in Saskatoon — three years before the Bessborough Hotel opened downtown. It has been operated by the Muzzolini family since 1966.
- Where is Christie's Mayfair Bakery located?
- The main bakery is at 420 33rd Street West, Saskatoon, SK S7L 0V6. Phone: (306) 244-0506. Their second location, Il Secondo, is on Broadway Avenue and serves breakfast, lunch, and wood-fired Neapolitan pizza.
- Who owns Christie's Bakery today?
- Christie's is owned and operated by siblings Blair and Tracey Muzzolini — the second generation of the Muzzolini family, which has owned the bakery since 1966 when Ennio and Janet Muzzolini purchased it from the Christie brothers.
- What is the Coupe Du Monde de la Boulangerie?
- The Coupe Du Monde de la Boulangerie — the World Cup of Bread — is the most prestigious international bread-baking competition in the world, held in Paris. In 2007, Tracey Muzzolini competed representing Team Canada in the Baguette and Specialty Bread category.
- Was Christie's the first sourdough bakery in Saskatoon?
- Yes. When Tracey Muzzolini returned to Christie's after training with the Bread Bakers Guild of America and competing at the Coupe Du Monde de la Boulangerie, she introduced artisan sourdough breads to the bakery — making Christie's one of the first bakeries in Saskatoon to offer them.
- What is Il Secondo?
- Il Secondo is Christie's second location on Broadway Avenue in Saskatoon, serving breakfast and lunch, featuring wood-fired Neapolitan-style pizzas and panini made with Christie's breads, along with coffee, tea, and a rotating selection of local Saskatchewan beers and wine.
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