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When Lew Demeter III saw that business was slowing down at his landscaping company, the man with Hungarian, Polish, and Italian roots decided to follow in his father's footsteps as a kosher baker.

His new store in Plainfield, Sweet Lew's Bakery & Pastry Shoppe, at least looked the part. Demeter used only kosher ingredients and even baked dairy goods in a separate oven. But when Rabbi Isaiah Hertzberg of Teaneck-based Quality Kosher Supervision Services decided he couldn't make the trip to Sweet Lew's anymore last year, the bakery was left without certification.

After a year of "kosher style" status, that problem was solved earlier this month when Rabbi Avrohom Blesofsky of Chabad of Union County granted new kosher certification to Sweet Lew's, giving the store what Demeter hopes is renewed legitimacy throughout the local Orthodox community.

"[Our customers] know Avrohom and they know what he stands for, so him supervising is a big deal for them," Demeter said. "It puts us on another level."

The bakery's location, at 1348 South Ave., was originally known as Margie's Cake Box and received supervision from Hertzberg until its closure four years ago. After the store remained vacant for two years, Hertzberg supervised Sweet Lew's for a year before leaving.

Then, with a 24-hour koshering marathon led by Blesofsky until 3 a.m. on March 5, Sweet Lew's was back to where it started. Blesofsky said he doesn't usually deal with the kashrut business, but saw a need for a kosher bakery in the community and felt Sweet Lew's could fill it.

"I felt that it would be a very nice kosher bakery since it has basically everything you need in it. It's a local bakery in every sense of the word," Blesofsky said.

Sweet Lew's is also a family business in every send of the word. Demeter runs the bakery with his father, mother, fiancee, future sister-in-law, and a few part-time workers. Special family recipes include Lew Demeter Jr.'s formulas for Hazelnut Tort Cake and hand-rolled bagels.

Demeter III said he now rolls 15-20 dozen bagels per hour, as the store sells them Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. He estimated that a machine could produce a few hundred bagels per minute, but said the extra effort is worth it.

"I'm not a machine person," Demeter III said. "More heart goes into hand-made bagels than with a machine."

Demeter Jr. previously owned bakeries in Kenilworth and North Arlington, with the North Arlington store supervised by Hertzberg. The Plainfield location was initially a prime spot because of customers coming across the street from a kosher meat restaurant named Larry's Deli.

"Between 6 and 8 p.m. I did a tremendous amount of business," Demeter III said. "People got dinner at Larry's and came over for parve dessert here."

Larry's closed two years ago, but Demeter III hopes that his new kosher certification can now boost traffic at the bakery. Sweet Lew's sells a variety of pastries including donuts, buns, danishes, muffins, and pies, as well as bread, rolls, biscuits, and coffee.

"My father has been in the business for 55 years, and we have another friend that helps us out who has been in the business for 60 years. Between them, there's not much we can't do," Demeter III said. "To be a Jewish baker even though you aren't Jewish isn't out of the ordinary. There's just a need for it and we are trying to broaden our business here."

Sweet Lew's gets a variety of customers from a culturally diverse surrounding neighborhood that includes Hispanic, Polish, Hungarian, and Italian communities. Even for Jews who aren't sticklers for kosher certification, eating at Sweet Lew's can still have some significance, Blesofsky said.

"I find Jews, regardless of their religious views, value their Jewish identity and do what they can to be connected. Eating at a kosher bakery can serve that purpose," Blesofsky said.

As far as Demeter III is concerned, that was always part of the mission at Sweet Lew's, with or without kosher certification.

"It's like that Hebrew National slogan, we are held to a higher standard," he said. "Whether we were kosher or not, my ingredients were always held to a higher standard. If there is a top ingredient out there, I'll buy it."

While receiving rabbinical supervision is now a key step for any kosher store, the Demeter family has been in the baking business for five generations, and Lew Demeter III has to laugh to himself when thinking if his ancestors worried about such matters.

"When my great-grandmother was a baker there probably wasn't much of a call for kosher bakery. They just used brick ovens," he said.