From Ring Dings to Disaster Zones, Madeline Lanciani Eyes Her Next Move

Madeline Lanciani in her Duane Park Patisserie at 179 Duane St. After 33 years and with her business up for sale, she said, "I still love to cook and bake. I still love to make people happy. I still want to feed people. I've just kind of run out of steam." Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

Madeline Lanciani is ready to sell her Duane Park Patisserie and leave that 33-year chapter in her life behind.

But not the cooking. 

At age 77, with the Tribeca mainstay she founded in 1992 up for sale, Lanciani is looking ahead to a new mission in the kitchen: feeding disaster victims.

Once the patisserie at 179 Duane St. finds a buyer and she’s taken time off to visit family around the country, Lanciani said she intends to volunteer with the World Central Kitchen, an organization that provides food relief to people impacted by disaster and war. (“My kids said, ‘Fine Mom, just don’t go to war zones,’ so I won’t.”)

“I don’t want to organize anything. I don’t want to be in charge of anything. I just want to chop onions and cook rice and feed people,” she said, seated at the counter of her retail shop. Recalling that she had wanted to join the Peace Corps after college, she added, “I think of it as a culinary Peace Corps.”

Lanciani is selling Duane Park Patisserie, she said, because she no longer wants to “wear the many hats” of a small business owner. “You’re the HR, you’re the procurement, you are the marketing, you are the CEO, the COO, the CIO, all the Cs, but it’s just you. And I’ve run out of steam to wear the hats.”

But there’s plenty of steam left for cooking and World Central Kitchen, she believes, is where hers belongs. Founder Jose Andres “built an organization and I’m in awe of what he’s been able to do,” she said. “He’s able to get stuff in there when the governments can’t.” 

In the meantime, Lanciani said she has had a “few bites” of interest in her nine-employee business, which serves catering and event customers, and includes the retail shop in the front. (The business is marketed by Jeffrey Tabak of Tribeca-based Tabak Realty.) “I think it’s going to take a while because I’m interested in finding someone to carry out and carry on the vision,” she said. 

Who might that person be?

“I’m looking for me 35 years ago,” she said, “with more ideas about how to make the cafe and the bakery more interesting to younger people. That would be great.”

“If somebody would want to be able to buy the idea and the brand and they didn’t know how to do it themselves,” she added, “I could help them find those people. I would stay on as a consultant.” 

If she hasn’t found a buyer in six months, she noted, she would have to come up with a “Plan B.” “I don’t know what that plan is yet.” 

It may not be cakes and croissants, but what Lanciani, who has worked in the kitchens of some of the city’s top restaurants, does know is that she’ll keep on cooking.

“Chopping onions,” she said with a laugh, “is so therapeutic.”