If you grew up on the East Coast, there’s a good chance part of your breakfast once came from a giant bakery in New Jersey. For decades, Thomas’ English Muffins were produced at a massive facility in Totowa and shipped throughout the region. But the story started much earlier. In 1880, English immigrant Samuel Bath Thomas opened a small bakery in New York City and introduced Americans to a round, yeast-raised muffin cooked on a hot griddle. Split one open, add butter, and all those little pockets soaked it right up. Those pockets eventually became famous as the “Nooks & Crannies.” By the time the Totowa bakery was turning them out by the thousands, Thomas’ had already become one of those quiet little pieces of everyday life. Toast popping up. Butter melting into every corner. Maybe a little jam. And somehow you were already halfway through one before the second half even made it onto the plate. The Totowa bakery closed in the 1990s, but that breakfast memory never really went anywhere. Some foods don’t just taste familiar. They taste like home.