“Where have you been?” an elderly man asks Don Fraser during a recent lunchtime, as a long line of customers starts winding through the small lobby of the Original Mart Pretzel Bakery.

Don, with a laugh, quips, “They are trying to put me in a nursing home, but I won’t let them.”

And so the banter goes like this for the good part of an hour as customers-turned-friends visit the bakery for their favorite snack.

The widely popular, family-owned business, with Don “somewhat retired” but still at the helm, is located in the Pep Boys Plaza on Route 130.

The bakery moved there in 2004, after their long-standing business spanning more than 40 years in the Pennsauken Mart was shuttered, when the mart closed down for a proposed redevelopment project.

The tale of the bakery is family folklore.

After a stint with the Philadelphia Fire Department for 25 years, Don’s father started the pretzel bakery in 1965.

“He was looking for something else to do after he retired, and someone suggested the pretzel business,” Don, 72, says. “My mom, sister and brother all worked in the mart, too.”

Throughout the years, the bakery’s reputation grew and rolled out locally as the best place to get a twist of dough.

True and loyal customers—sometimes traversing three generations—have been coming from Cinnaminson, Delran, Maple Shade, Moorestown, Palmyra and Riverton, and beyond. 

“Believe it or not, we have customers who drive over to us from Philadelphia,” says Julia Fraser, 64, says, who also works in the bakery. 

Julia says their pretzels were voted “Best of Philly” in Philadelphia Magazine this past year.

“Pretty good for a place in South Jersey,” Don adds.

Past the counter, where Don and Julia stuff pretzels into brown bags, is the large counter where the pretzels are made by hand, a complicated and laborious job. Off to the side is a commercial refrigerator stocked with newly made pretzels waiting to be baked in the industrial oven, which can cook 32 dozen pretzels simultaneously. 

Nowadays, both daughter Sandra and son Shaughnessey—the next generation of Frasers—also work in the bakery twisting fresh dough into pretzels flavored with cinnamon sugar, whole wheat or garlic. The salt-free pretzels are sought after with some of the health-conscious customers. 

“Sandra had the idea of the minis,” Don says of the popular abbreviated version of the pretzels, as another hot tray slides into the pretzel casings.

Hot dogs, sausages and peperoni and cheese are wrapped in pretzel dough for sandwiches, which Don says are popular with the lunch crowd.

A choice of dips are available, too.

This time of year, with so many holiday parties, a boost in baking takes place to meet demands.

As a construction worker pays for a bag of pretzels, Sandra asks him how his family’s been. 

“It’s like one big family,” Sandra acknowledges about her customer base. “I can’t think of another thing I’d rather be doing.”