One day, Peter Ariola Jr. — third-generation owner of Long Island pastry business Ariola Bakery — had an idea: What if he took the broken shells of his cannoli and transformed them into candy bars?
They had used the shells in a cheesecake before, so there was a precedent, but he was after a more portable and shelf-stable format.
“When you fill a cannoli, it becomes soggy after, you know, 12 hours,” he says. “You don’t need a refrigerator to keep the candy bar, and the shell stays crunchy because it’s enrobed in the white chocolate — fresh tasting as if it was just made.”
Ariola said he had been considering the idea for some time and was close to shelving it entirely, but with the encouragement of his wife, he finally released his first packaged Cannoli Bars in 2021.
The taste can be compared to a Hershey’s Cookies ‘n’ Creme, creamy with shards of cannoli crust peaking through the surface. Or, in Ariola’s words, “It’s a very clean-tasting candy bar with a unique flavor profile that you won’t find in other candy bars.”
Though the product itself is new and one-of-a-kind, it is an evolution of the family business, Ariola Foods, that first began as a pastry shop in Brooklyn, on Rockaway Avenue, in 1923 by his grandfather, Don Crencenzo. Around 2008, it moved out to Farmingdale, New York, expanding its wholesale. Ariola grew up helping his father Peter Ariola Sr. and by around the age of 25, Ariola Jr. joined the business full-time. He was fascinated by the machinery side and wanted to help find ways to expedite production.
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According to its website, today Ariola Foods can produce over six thousand cannoli in an hour; they claim to be the largest vendor not only of cannoli but also another Italian pastry, sfogliatelle (a Neapolitan pastry filled with semolina and ricotta), on the entire East Coast. Asked if that six thousand figure is still accurate he says, “at least! That’s easy for us.”
Though the family has decades of cannoli production down, creating the Cannoli Bar was a labor of love, and required a lot of R&D. At his Long Island facility, Ariola created an incorporation and a new enclosure to make sure the process was separate from their regular cannoli production. They built some of their own equipment to “be able to break the cannolis down to the right size,” when they couldn’t find a machine that would do it for them, he says, “It took a lot longer for the for us to be able to make it than we ever thought it would. It was not a simple thing to do.”
Even though their actual pastries have been given the thumbs up by talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, Ariola has always preferred to stay word-of-mouth. That’s how the Cannoli Bar, in its short lifespan, has found its way to wholesalers.
“I don’t know how these people find me,” he says after a vendor in Arizona called for an order. “I don’t keep track of where I’m sending them, but I’ve heard they’ve made their way to places like Florida.”
Sometimes that’s a Dyker Heights bagel spot. Or at least that’s where shop owner Caroline Weaver found the candy bars. When she went to open the Locavore Variety Store earlier this year in the West Village — her store dedicated to products made within the New York City radius — she knew she knew she would be stocking them at the check-out register. “I loved the packaging so much,” she says, adding they make for a great gift, especially for those looking for a sample of old-school New York.
The most memorable part of Cannoli Bars is its packaging. It features two dancing cannoli with musical notes floating like an aura. It’s also the logo for the entire Ariola Foods brand of products. Ariola, now 60, says he designed it himself some years ago. He has an art background and was a portrait painter in his youth.
“It’s just about fun, the joy of sweets, that they make people happy you know, it makes your taste buds sing,” he says of his logo design, which he was proud to watch come into fruition from its initial drawing stage. One could see him having a lot of success turning it into merch.
Cannoli Bar stockists like the Locavore Variety Store, or Economy Candy where it is also sold, aren’t advertised on the Ariola family’s website site; it is an anachronistic system that makes a scavenger hunt out of finding the goodies in the wild. Ariola admits he’d like to concentrate more proactively on sales for the candy bar down the line. Still, its hard-to-find quality has also made it a fascination of candy taste-testers online.
“The thing that excites me is that people all over will have an opportunity to enjoy a cannoli, my particular cannoli shell, especially in a candy bar form, any time, any place, any anywhere they would like… it’s a beautiful product,” he says.
“We’re very proud of it, and people love it, I just want to see it growing,” Ariola says. “[Cannoli Bars] can go into any gas station, it can go into any supermarket, it can go into any candy store, any 7-Eleven, which is really cool. I like the idea that it could be everywhere.” That is, of course, if you know where to look.
