Tour top Chicago bakeries
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Dinkel's Bakery has been a Chicago institution for more than 80 years. |
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Swedish Bakery is set up for efficient production. |
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Weber's Bakery serves a diverse customer base, including Polish, Mexican, Italian, Irish and German communities. |
Dinkel's Bakery
Address: 3329 Lincoln Ave., Chicago Founded: 1922 Management: Norm Dinkel, president; Libby Ryder, administrative assistant; Richard Reaves, foreman; Can-dice Florance and Joan Elias, store managers Bakery size: 12,000 sq. ft.
Signature products: stollen, cakes, cookies, Danish and specialty baked foods
How is your business different today than it was in 1997 when the RBA show was last in Chicago?
Norm Dinkel: We do world-wide shipping via our mail order service and use the internet for order taking and for placing orders with our suppliers. We also focus our business more on cakes and cookies than the other items we bake.
Have you added any equipment or technology that has improved your bakery business?
N.D.: Computers and software and a new cake mixer.
What should RBA tour participants note about your bakery?
N.D.: I find that since we have been in business since 1922, we offer today's customers nostalgia, stability in a very fast changing world and personal service (most businesses today do not offer personal service.) Because there are fewer retail bakeries, lots of people in this country want to buy from us, therefore the advent of the mail order business.
What's special about being a retail baker in Chicago? N.D.: We have a great dynamic world class city, which allows opportunities to create new and exciting baked foods for a group of people willing to buy and try these foods.
Swedish Bakery
Address: 5348 N. Clark, Chicago Founded: 1929 Management: Marlies Stanton, president; Kathy Stanton, managing director; Dennis Stanton, C.O.O.
Bakery size: 1,200 sq. ft. retail area, 3,200 sq. ft. bakery production, 2,600 sq. ft. storage and other Signature products: Swedish items and cakes, such as marzipan (Princess) tortes, fruit glazed whip cream cakes and chocolate ganache cakes; extensive line of petits fours and cookies
How is your business different today than it was in 1997 when the RBA show was last in Chicago?
Dennis Stanton: Following trends, we continue to evolve from a bakery into a pastry shop. Traditional bakery items, such as pies, bread, Danish, coffeecakes and donuts continue to decline as a percentage of sales. Trends also seem to be pointing towards selling more small items for desserts and entertaining.
What should RBA tour participants note about your bakery? D.S.: The layout of the bakery, which helps efficient work-flow. Good lighting in our production and storage areas.
Who are your customers? D.S. We draw customers from all over the Chicago metro area, particularly the north side and northwest suburbs. Only 20 percent of our customers come from our native zip code. Customer demographics represent the broad cross-section of the metro area: white, Hispanic, African-American, Middle-Eastern, Asian, Indian and Pakistani customers.
What's special about being a retail baker in Chicago? D.S.: The traditions, the diversity, the competition and the dynamic atmosphere make this a unique and challenging market.
Fleckenstein's Bakery
Address: 19225 S. LaGrange Rd., Mokena, Ill. Founded: 1977 Management: Bob Fleckenstein, president; Ray Flecken-stein, vice president; Ross Fleckenstein, vice president; Joan Fleckenstein, secretary/treasurer Bakery size: 4,100 sq. ft.
Have you expanded/downsized in the last 10 years? Bob Fleckenstein: We added 1,100 sq. ft. in 1998. We added a new decorating room, office and washrooms.
How is your bakery different today than it was in 1997 when RBA was last in Chicago?
B.F.: We've redone the front of the store. Adding on and moving the decorating to a different location made a lot of changes and required us to relocate a lot of things. It gave us more room to add the things we had wanted to add before, like a cookie machine and a new rack oven.
What should the RBA tour participants note about your bakery?
B.F.: What we have added since the last RBA, and the fact that our building started out as a gas station and we modified it.
Who are your customers?
B.F.: Our customers come mainly from about a 15-mile radius. Our customer base is constantly changing because the area is changing. The town was one-tenth the size it is now when we first opened. With the growth came different nationalities, so we are offering products that we didn't offer before to satisfy the customers.
What ideas have you picked up from RBA shows? B.F.: You haven't got enough time. I was on the board for seven years, and every time I've gone to a show or a board meeting I have always learned something. I've just been so grateful to everyone for showing me things they do that I don't. It is an every day learning experience.
What's special about being a retail baker in Chicago? B.F.: I'm sure some of our problems are the same as across the country. In a city, we probably have a different clientele than other areas in that it is ever changing. We also have a lot of good bakeries here.
What are your future business plans? B.F.: Try to continue to grow with an expanded product line. We are toying with the idea of getting into gourmet candies. I was just at a candy show in Philadelphia and I bought a tempering machine to get the feel of it.
Weber's Bakery
Address: 7055 W. Archer Ave., Chicago Founded: 1930 Management: Michael Weber, president; Gail Weber, vice president Bakery size: 3,000 sq. ft.
Signature products: banana split torte, chocolate cake donuts
How is your bakery different today than it was in 1997 when RBA was last in Chicago?
Michael Weber: We have so many different products to keep up with the changing times. We put in new cases in 1998, and we bought a huge parking lot because the streets around our bakery are zoned. Customers had a hard time parking without the proper stickers.
Have you added any equipment or business technology? M.W.: We recently bought a new scanner and computer decorating system. We have a new oven and proofer.
What should RBA tour participants note about your bakery?
M.W.: Our variety. We do everything from plain donuts to wedding cake. We offer a variety of bread.
What's special about being a retail baker in Chicago? M.W.: Chicago is such an ethnically diverse city, and it still has a lot of retail bakeries. The competition makes us stronger, and people still want the ethnic bakery that they grew up with. The bakeries in Chicago are still ethnically oriented, and not white toast like in some other regions where all the bakeries are the same.
What are your future business plans? M.W.: Continue being a retail bakery, and not take the lure of becoming a mass-marketed, non-scratch bakery. Our customers want us to be their special bakery and to not be able to get our products in every store. Also to continue adding new items to keep up with changes, but never losing identity of being an ethnic retail bakery.
Complete list of participating RBA tour bakeriesTour One-North Shore Tour Two-Chicago Neighborhoods Tour Three-Northwest Suburbs Deerfields Bakery #3 in Schaumburg Tour Four-North Suburbs and City Tour Five-Southwest City and Suburbs For more information about the RBA bakery tours and the participating bakeries, please visit www.rbanet.com and click on the Marketplace logo. |
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© 2008 Penton Media Inc.
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