By JAN McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Eight-year-old Wynn Ruffner stood on her tiptoes as she searched the bakery case for her favorite – long johns filled with vanilla cream and smothered with chocolate icing on the top.
“We had to come before they closed,” Jessica Ruffner said, as she and her daughters Addison, Reese and Wynn, stopped by Wednesday at the Sweet Stop bakery in Bowling Green.
“We come here way too often,” Ruffner said, often making a doughnut run before school. “We’ve loved this place since it was Stimmels.”
The closing of the Sweet Stop on Friday will leave an empty spot in several stomachs in the city.
“We’re already strategizing,” of how to fill that hole, Ruffner said.
Others waiting for sweets felt the same sadness at the loss of the local bakery.
“I knew this store when it was Tyrrell’s,” said Jenni Morlock. “I just hope someone will sweep in and save it.”
The owners, JENN Investments, would love that, too. But Jim Grames, the co-owner who’s been operating the bakery, just can’t wait any longer for that miracle.
The Sweet Stop opened in November 2019, with hopes of preserving the traditions baked in by Stimmels, the former shop at 1220 W. Wooster St.
The bakery survived the Covid pandemic, but continued to be bogged down by rising prices of ingredients, shortage of goods, and labor difficulties. For the last two years, the shop has continued to lose money, Grames said Friday morning.
“Our costs are going up, but our revenues are not,” he said.
Running a bakery is tough, Grames said. The hours are brutal and it’s difficult to find people willing to work them.
“We’re just a small doughnut shop. I have people working around the clock,” he said. “I’m tired. I’m worn out.”
“If someone is interested, I would definitely sell it,” Grames said.
Bowling Green residents love the bakery, he added, but his health had to take priority over the pastries.
“Unfortunately the decision had to be made,” Grames said.
A couple days before it closed, Mayor Mike Aspacher headed to the Sweet Stop to pick up some treats to take home. Trips to the bakery have become a tradition for the mayor and his grandchildren, Macey and Max, when they spend the night at their grandparents’.
Aspacher has memorized the baked goods that satisfy the sweet tooth of each family member. Max likes strawberry doughnuts with sprinkles, Macy favors white cake doughnuts with chocolate frosting, and his wife Toni prefers old-fashioned glaze doughnuts. The mayor said he tries to avoid the sweet treats himself, however, in the spirit of full transparency, Toni revealed that her husband is partial to the traditional whole wheat doughnuts.
His grandchildren will miss their breakfast runs to the Sweet Stop, Aspacher said.
“This is a really valuable niche business,” he said.
Maria Steiner, who stops by on special occasions to get sweets at the shop, agreed. The occasion earlier this week was in anticipation of the shop shutting.
“We knew they were closing, so we wanted to get some before they did,” Steiner said. “These doughnuts are locally made, fresh baked on site.”
Steiner’s daughter, Alanna, 9, was hoping to get her favorites – blueberry and vanilla cream filled doughnuts.
“She got the last one,” Steiner said, as she and Alanna showed their box of a dozen doughnuts.
Also in line was Gene Robinson, of rural Bowling Green, who was on a mission from home.
“My wife sent me here to get doughnuts,” Robinson said. “It’s kind of sad.”
On Friday morning, manager Amanda Asztalos was busy finishing up the last orders at the bakery. She had already decorated sugar cookies for a baby shower, and had moved on to slathering buttercream icing onto a graduation cake.
Asztalos and others at the shop have been filling customers’ cravings, with the big sellers being Bavarian cream pastries, raspberry filled doughnuts, chocolate chip cookies and peanut butter cookies.
“We make everything from scratch,” she said.
In the past week, Asztalos has heard from customers wanting to help the shop stay in business.
“They have asked, ‘Can we do a fundraiser – anything to keep you open,’” she said.
If there was a way, Grames would have kept the pastries and cookies coming, Asztalos said.
“He loves this place. He was trying to make it pull through,” but on Monday, he came to the conclusion that he was done, she said. “It’s definitely tearing him to pieces to do this.”
Most of the customers are regulars, Asztalos said, as she maneuvered the second layer of the large sheet cake on top of the first.
“We get people who come every single day, and they get the same thing,” she said. Usually she doesn’t know their names, but she knows their preferences, like the customer she calls “Tom Raspberry.”
As Asztalos smoothed out the frosting on the graduation cake, Isabel Loznao was making cherry turnovers. For nearly 1½ years now, Loznao has been working the 4 a.m. shift at the bakery.
The bakers start their shifts at 8 p.m., then Loznao gets there in time to put filling inside, and frosting on top of the doughnuts – so the sweets are ready by 6 a.m. for the early customers.
“I get here at 3:58 a.m. I come here grouchy,” and quickly gets down to the business of finishing the baked goods with no time for conversation, Loznao said.
In addition to pre-orders and walk-in customers, the Sweet Stop also supplied pies to Brinkman’s Market and cookies for the ice cream sandwiches at Frosty Fare.
As word spread about the shop closing, business has been brisk this week, with the bakery selling out by 10 or 11 a.m. each day. One day the shop sold 12 pounds of cake doughnuts before 10 a.m. That was bittersweet for Asztalos, who was left wondering, “where were you before?”
“She’s going to cry,” Asztalos said about co-worker Loznao as they finished up the final orders in the kitchen.
“What about that speck of dirt in your eye this morning?” Loznao said back to her boss.
“I’m going to wake up Monday and be lost,” Asztalos admitted. “We’re sad. Everybody’s sad. It’s just a terrible, terrible thing.”
