Mayor Maria Harkey cuts the ceremonial ribbon to open the Wyckoff Bakery in West Milford in 2000. With the mayor are Ashley Leskanic, Cheryl Dyak, Amanda Miller, Lauren Muglia in a bunny costume and Frank Accurso, the owner. (File photo by Ann Genader)
Bakery businesses have come and gone throughout the years in West Milford, leaving memories of delicious baked goods with those who enjoyed the treats that came from local ovens.
In 1975, Kathleen and Karl Stahl opened their West Milford Quality Bakery three doors down from the ShopRite supermarket.
Their cakes, pies, breads and rolls were in a glass case in the front section of the store.
Five bakers were employed in a large oblong kitchen.
A newspaper report at the time said the equipment was massive and impressive. “For example, with a dough mixer, a metal tank with detachable aluminum bowls, (the smallest being large enough to bathe a tot and much too large for just one loaf of bread) work could be under way,” Marilyn Maxwell reported in her article.
“The dough sheeter is best described as a flat oblong butcher block, perhaps six feet long and two and one-half feet wide with an automatic adjustable rolling pin that can flatten dough paper thin, if need be,” she wrote.
“There’s a cutting machine with an automatic crank that cuts a sheet of dough into 36 round pieces and swirls them around giving each a certain quirk of their own. A deep freezer and refrigerator about the size of an old-fashioned butler pantry keeps the prepared assortments until they’re ready for the oven or the customer.
“The Stahls’ bakers start preparing on Tuesday to be ready for the weekend rush. Prepared cakes and pies are baked in the wee hours just in time to accommodate the Saturday breakfasters and the post-Sunday (church) service crowds.
Karl Stahl was quoted as saying, “There’s more to running a bakery than knowing how to operate the machinery. Baking is a science, although most people, when given a couple of years training, can learn it. And baking is an art too, because there’s an element of instinct involved.”
The report mentioned responsibilities in running a bakery that few customers consider when they admire or taste the finished product. The Stahls constantly had to be on top of the inventory. In their business, they used 20 dozen fresh eggs each week. They needed to be sure there was an ample supply of fresh fudge, jelly and other assorted fillings, enough flour and sweet butter.
Karl Stahl said he never used anything but sweet, unsalted butter because it contained less water.
Immigrant couple
He had been baking since he was a young boy in Wartburg, Germany, where his father, grandfather and great-grandfather owned bakeries for 100 years.
The couple lived in Wyckoff, where Karl previously worked for an established bakery for 15 years.
Maxwell described Kathleen, formerly a dental assistant, as “an Irish lass from Ireland, a petite blonde with darting blue eyes, a light brogue - and a white thumb.”
The couple became American citizens and had two children, Michael and Karleen.
“They each bring their own old-world specialties from their native land,” she wrote. “For Karl, it’s rye bread. For Kathleen, it’s Irish potato bread, her St. Patrick’s Day special.”
Brad Bender grew up in Awosting and when elected president of the West Milford Board of Education at age 19, he became the youngest school board member in New Jersey history.
He has lived in Vermont for many years and serves a mayor and justice of the peace in his community.
He recalls much about West Milford, where he grew up.
For example, he said that in 1975, when ShopRite was in its present location, the building was much smaller. Heading up the sidewalk toward the bank were established businesses: West Milford Liquors, Lazon Paint (where Bender was manager for a time), West Milford Quality Bakery, Tell’s Luncheonette, Dennen of Radburn, LaVine’s men’s clothing store (they had a store in Butler too), Pinecliff Pharmacy and the First National Bank of Passaic County (originally First National Bank of Bloomingdale). This is now the Wells Fargo Bank.
‘Booming business’
“The bakery did a booming business,” he recalled. “Dr. and Mrs. Peter Kesseler lived on East 68th Street in Manhattan and they owned a vacation home at Awosting. The doctor was a surgeon at Lenox Hill Hospital (in New York City).
“Mrs. Kesseler claimed that the Stahls’ West Milford Quality Bakery produced better dinner rolls than any she could buy in the city of New York. She took bakery rolls from West Milford back to Yorkville and kept a good supply of them in her freezer there for dinner parties.
In the 1950s and ’60s, there was another popular bakery across from ShopRite in a small shopping center where Walgreens Pharmacy is now. Jimmy Jordan and his mother-in-law, Mrs. Dunn, owned and operated it.
There was a row of stores in that complex with Eddy Gola’s Pinecliff Market featuring sale of fresh fruits and vegetables. Gola, a Democrat, had the role of West Milford mayor when his colleagues chose him as chairman of the Township Committee. It was a time when the public did not directly vote for the mayor.
“My mother and grandmother bought their bread and baked goods at Jimmy’s,” Bender recalled.
The owner of the bakery shop had some social challenges, but he sure could bake, he said. Health inspector Jack Green once closed the bakery for alleged violations.
The son of building inspector Gene Richards heard his father recapping town hall events one evening, and the next day he went on errands with his grandmother Ethel Bunting, including a stop at the bakery. “Look, Grandma,” the boy said. “The machine that they had to sandblast is working fine!”
“Jimmy was a good-natured fellow,” Bender said, adding that his wife, Betty, was the den mother of his Cub Scout troop. “Just before Father’s Day one year, Betty took us to the bakery, where Jimmy baked and iced some cakes. He showed each of us how to use a pastry bag to decorate the cakes and how to write “Happy Father’s Day” on the frosting.”
Other bakeries
After that bakery closed, another one opened in the small space between Shinol’s Sleepy Hollow Tavern and the corner store at 1934 Greenwood Lake Turnpike that was Ralph Pisapia’s meat market.
Last month, the West Milford Township Council approved transfer of a liquor license from a restaurant recently housed at that location, known as Lucs Garage, to Maxx’s Bar and Grill.
“I recalled the bakery that was there known as Axie’s,” Bender said. “I was in the car with my family on the drive home after attending weekly Sunday services at Church of the Incarnation on Marshall Hill Road. We stopped at Axie’s bakery for donuts each week.”
He remembers the couple who had a fish market just up the road from the bakery and across from Carl’s Diner in the Aiello strip mall. She had short white hair and was behind the counter. He was usually behind the scenes or driving to and from New York City, where he bought fish off the boats in the harbor.”
People say he had an unusual last name, but no one seems to remember how to spell it or recall what it was. So, according to historians, he was simply known as Joe Fish. He may have been in business only three or four years.
Another source of baked goods was the Dugans’ bakery, which had truck bread and other baked goods delivered by a driver who made the rounds.
In 2000, the Wyckoff Bakery opened on the corner of Marshall Hill and Union Valley Road. The building was replaced by Walgreens. Frank Accurso was the owner.
Lauren Muglia, the manager, dressed in a bunny costume at the grand opening to the delight of children there. Other employees were Ashley Leskanic, Cheryl Dyak and Amanda Miller. Mayor Maria Harkey cut a ceremonial ribbon.
In the 1950s, a good number of people did not travel to the West Milford village center to shop because it was closer and more convenient for them to do so in neighboring towns. For instance, people in the Apshawa, Echo Lake and the southern lake community regions chose to shop in Butler, Bloomingdale or Kinnelon and many still do.
Ernie Nees with his Nees Bakery on Main Street in Butler was the go-to place for some people in that area of the township. His relative, Bill Perry of West Milford, operated the business after Ernie retired.
Perry was married to Bernice Marion, an ancestor of one of the founding families. He baked many cakes for wedding receptions, graduation parties and other special times.
In 1989, Taystee Bakery Thrift Store at 209 Oak Ridge Road offered a 10 percent senior citizen discount on Wednesdays and a local newspaper announcement said, “We gladly accept food stamps.” The business offered “fresh and returned products with satisfactory money-back guarantee - special process limited to stock on hand.”
West Milford’s newest baker has the Flour Shop at the corner of White and Union Valley roads. It is in a building that has been a popular business place since the 1950s.
Frank Schwaeble first opened it as a hot dog stand and later he had a flower shop there. His daughter, Jill Schwaeble Canty, operated her West Milford Florist business there for many years before retiring.
The new owners have continued the florist business and added a bakery.