Swedish Bakery announced Thursday that it is closing at the end of this month after 88 years in business in Andersonville. If you tried phoning Friday morning when it opened at 6:30, your call probably went on automatic hold for five minutes, then rolled over to voicemail.
However, it was not generations of regular customers trying to place their last orders for traditional princess cake or the house special Andersonville coffeecake, but an area-wide outage, Comcast told the bakery’s operations officer, Dennis Stanton, whose parents bought the store in 1979.
The phones were still out midmorning, with the house full in front and busy in back, but both scenes were surprisingly calm, even with the next waiting number at 82 but next up only 47.
The only customers tasting the sample pastries on the counter were grandfather Dick Smith and grandson Ethan Cloud. But it was the younger generation of this family who was the regular. “I’m just visiting from Arizona today," said Smith. "My daughter told me they were closing, so we’re getting some cookies and a coffee cake.”
“I live in the neighborhood," said Cloud, "their cookies and cakes are really good and fresh here.”
Had he ever had a birthday cake from Swedish Bakery? Cloud nodded enthusiastically, “It was chocolate, and that was really good too.” What will he do for his next cake? He paused, then said, "I don’t know."
Bakery family matriarch Marlies Stanton (“86 old next week,” she said) bought the business with her late husband, George Stanton, 38 years ago. Friday morning, she sat in the front corner of the kitchen, in what her youngest son, Dennis, said is called the captain’s chair. She no longer bakes but is still involved and lives upstairs.
The family is not Swedish, but instead took over from a Swedish family. Marlies was born in Germany, growing up in Dusseldorf in her parents’ pastry shop. “I did my apprenticeship first in a store as a saleslady, then as a pastry cook,” she said. When asked her childhood bakery favorite, “I like sweet stuff, but I like sausage better,” said Stanton, laughing.
In and out of the kitchen was Genny Malapit, who has worked at the bakery for 10 years, now as the main order packer. What will Malapit stock up on before the bakery closes? “I’m thinking of almond thins,” she said. “Those are good cookies. They’re light and thin and crispy with slivered almonds, with powdered sugar or without, and they’re not too sweet.”
The question of what happens next for Malapit and about 40 other employees has kept Dennis Stanton occupied.
“We are actively trying to place them with other businesses," he said. "We know other bakeries that are looking for staff. And that’s the one thing in this town, there are a lot of shops that are looking for employees who have experience, and that’s the big thing.”
“We’re placing those people with some of our friends — they’re not competitors. We know everyone in the industry, so hopefully everyone who wants a job will be able to find one in a Chicago-area bakery.”
He added, “We wish it hadn’t happened this way. One of the reasons we were so tentative about closing was we did have some inquiries, and some people were actively look at buying the business, but it just didn’t pan out.”
“At that point, we finally said we can’t keep on doing this to our employees and to ourselves quite frankly. At this point, we’re just going to have to say the time has come.”
The future of the building itself is also in question. Stanton, whose family owns the property, said developers have also made inquiries.
Meanwhile, they will be baking every day as usual, except Sunday when they’re closed, until Feb. 28, which falls on Mardi Gras, celebrated in Chicago as Paczki Day.
lchu@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @louisachu
What have you always wanted to know about Chicago food? Marissa Conrad
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