Arble Baking Co. co-founder Alonza Anderson talks about the business' part in the new credit union in the former Edgewood Bakery. | Dan Scanlan, Jacksonville Today
Published on June 24, 2026 at 3:34 pm
Free local news and info, in your inbox at 6 a.m. M-F. Sign up for the Jacksonville Today newsletter.
What is being called a “sweet announcement” was made Wednesday at the site of the long-gone — but still fondly remembered — Edgewood Bakery.
When the new Murray Hill branch of the Community First Credit Union opens at 1012 Edgewood Avenue S. later this year, the Arble Baking Co. will be there too, selling sandwiches and the baked goods the family-run operation have been making for about 50 years.
Jacksonville Today thanks our sponsors. Become one.
Alonza Anderson’s parents, Willis and Veronica Anderson, started baking and selling cookies from their Arlington home on Arble Drive in 1975. Alonza Anderson said they are ready to bring Arble Baking Co. to the site of a well-loved Murray Hill bakery.
“We definitely want to pay respect and homage to the legacy that is in place while really bringing to the table, a family that has been part of Jacksonville for three generations ,” said Anderson, who co-founded Arble Baking Co. in 2020, then opened a Dunn Avenue restaurant in 2023. “We really have a strong brand and we are really working hard, and we are going to work tirelessly to continue the legacy that has been established and serve the current needs and take it into the future.”
READ MORE: Calico Cactus will replace Maple Street in Murray Hill
Jacksonville Today thanks our sponsors. Become one.
Bringing a family-run bakery and sandwich shop to the credit union, a first-time combination at a Community First, is genuinely a “best-case scenario” for the Edgewood Bakery site, said Daniel Mattsson-Boze, head of the Murray Hill Preservation Association. The credit union will have a neighborhood community room plus the bakery and is “very excited” about it, he said.
“This is definitely moving the neighborhood in the right direction,” he said. “Community First is investing in the neighborhood. They are building out spots for community involvement; they are bringing in the bakery; and all this stuff is a net positive for the neighborhood. There’s a lot of emotional investment in that bakery, but Community First is staying local — it is a locally owned family bakery, and they have a spot for the community to hang out.”
Edgewood Bakery owners Gary and Sandy Polletta opened in 1992 at Edgewood Avenue and Post Street, buying it from the original owners, who had opened it in 1947. The Polletta family retired in 2014, and the bakery closed March 12, 2016. Plans to convert it into another restaurant backed by Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan’s Stache Investments never materialized.
Fast forward to the fall of 2024, when Community First Credit Union bought the .71-acre site and its two buildings for $1.65 million. Renovation began after a groundbreaking in January.
Community First Credit Union President and CEO Sam Inman said the business heard what Murray Hill residents wanted there. Arble Baking Co.’s second location will open as part of a unique, first-ever combination of banking and baking with what Inman calls a “food feature.”
“If you have never heard of the term, food feature, it is a permanently constructed food truck in our beautiful front porch at the Murray Hill location,” Inman said. “This build will honor the history of the former bakery and the people of Murray Hill, who ever loyally told us they wanted us to remember and honor the Edgewood Bakery.”
Unique parts of the original bakery have been saved and restored for display inside the new branch, including the original Edgewood bakery neon sign, Inman said.
Bakery origins
As for the Arble Baking Co., its humble origin was as a home bakery started in 1975 by the Andersons in their home near Terry Parker High School. Willis Anderson, a 32-year veteran Jacksonville firefighter, was nicknamed “The Cookie Man” because he would sell the family’s oatmeal nut cookies to firefighters and others from his rescue unit, Inman said.
His children carried on their parents’ legacy by creating the Arble Baking Co. in 2020, with the first restaurant three years later at 6765 Dunn Avenue in 2023. Now they step into the nostalgic shadow of the historic Edgewood Bakery.
“The actual full kitchen will be in a permanent food feature,” Alonza Anderson said. “It kind of looks like a food truck, but it has hard plumbing and A/C, and a kitchen hood, grills and fryers — a mini-kitchen on site
The new Murray Hill branch will have a shaded lawn and social area in front of it, with a community room inside the branch that can be used for events that Anderson said they will cater. Its interior will feature a mural depicting historical photos of the neighborhood. And Arble will sell its cookies, cakes, sandwiches and more from the social area.
In honor of moving into the Murray Hill area, Arble will ask the community to come up with a name for one items it will sell there: a “oversize club sandwich” with layers of ham, turkey, roast beef, bacon and cheese on its artisan bread.
“It really makes for a good sandwich,” Alonza Anderson said.
