Stephen Jendrysik: Bob's Bakery in Chicopee keeps tasty Polish traditions
By on December 22, 2011 at 3:04 PM, updated December 22, 2011 at 3:18 PM
Dorothy Czajka, left, and her daughter Jennifer Czajka are shown behind the counter at Bob's Bakery in the Czajka Building on Exchange Street in Chicopee.
CHICOPEE - Our North Shore great-nephews, Sam and Nate Jendrysik, live on Federal Street in historic Salem. Whenever we visit my nephew Ted and his wife, Lisa, we always make a mandatory stop at 218 Exchange St. here in Chicopee to pick up two Polish babkas - a type of raisin bread which comes round or braided.
The little guys consume it without butter. They call it “boo-ka-bread.”
When we head south to Maryland to visit our granddaughters, we add a couple of Bob’s Bakery’s Polish rye breads and six of his incomparable paczki (jelly doughnuts) to our babka order.
This weekend I’ll be standing in line (hopefully inside the building) to pick up two special large braided Polish babkas.
In Polish American homes all over the Connecticut River Valley, on Wigilia - the traditional Christmas eve celebration - families will share the oplatek, the sacred wafer wishing good fortune and good health to all present.
As the family gathers at the table for the meatless feast of mushroom barzcz, kapusta and our famous homemade pierogis, the babkas from Bob’s Bakery will be carefully sliced to order. The kids at our house will tell you that the Czajka family makes the best “boo-ka-bread” in the world.
In the town of Nowe, near Gdansk in the northwestern part of Poland, Zygmunt Czajka, at the age of 12, was apprenticed to a baker. He studied baking in school, was taken prisoner by the Nazis and sent to a forced labor camp in Germany.
He worked first at a farm and, later, as a baker at several different sites in Germany. In 1945, in a camp for displaced persons, he met Wiktoria. They married a year later, and in 1949, with a baby son, the couple emigrated to the United States.
Zygmunt, now a baker by trade, got a job immediately in the City Bakery on Exchange Street. Later, he worked at the famous Stadnicki Bakery, also on Exchange Street. Both establishments specialized in Polish baked goods.
In 1965, the master baker purchased a three-story building on Exchange Street and opened his own bakery. The Czajka family lived above the bakery in the first year of the business.
Bob’s Bakery opened for business on Nov. 9, 1965 - the week of the Northeast power blackout. It wasn’t an auspicious opening, but it didn’t harm the development of the bakery into a landmark for people who love old-fashioned Polish rye bread, that is, bread made without additives or preservatives.
Forty-six years ago there were eight independent ethnic bakeries in Chicopee. Most featured Polish baked goods.
In truth, today, there is only one. This week the customers filling the store on Thursday, Friday and Saturday will have journeyed from the little bakery’s customer base, which during the holiday season extends to West Springfield, Springfield, Westfield, Holyoke and Longmeadow. Many also make a pilgrimage to the Exchange Street bakery from as far away as Hampshire and Franklin counties.
The Czajka family’s commitment to quality means the taste of the old country is lovingly duplicated everyday.
Paul Czajka graduated from Chicopee High School in 1978, went on to the computer program at Springfield Technical Community College and a job in Boston. Following his dad’s retirement, he took advantage of the opportunity of running the family business.
In retirement, though, his father was not satisfied in 1984 with the 48-bread per hour capacity of the original eight-pan oven manufactured by the Bolling Co. in Cleveland, Ohio. Working with the company, Zygmunt Czajka helped design a new, 24-pan rotary oven.
Today, the rotary oven, plus the motorized dough-mixer that can mix up to 125 pounds of flour at one time, are the only mechanical help Paul Czajka has. The rest is hand work as each piece of dough is molded and weighed before going to the oven.
Henry Filar interviewed young Paul Czajka for the Springfield Union-News in 1992, six years after Zygmunt Czajka had passed away in 1986. “I do everything the way my father taught me. He gave me his secrets on doing it well,” he said in the interview.
Czajka, who helped out in the family business as a boy, always speaks with respect and admiration about how his father taught him the baker’s trade.
“I can remember my father sitting in that chair,” he said, pointing to the chair in the mixing and oven section in the back of the store, “watching me mix dough, form loves of bread and pas try, and bake them- and tell me if I was going anything wrong.”
Under his father’s tutelage, Paul learned every part of the business from making the baked goods and waiting on customers to washing pots and pans and sweeping up.
The little bakery’s largest seller is the old-fashioned authentic Polish rye. This is not the rye bread you get at the supermarket.
Bob’s Bakery bakes babkas on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The raisin bread is their second best seller and our personal favorite.
Paul and Dorothy Czajka epitomize the meaning of a family business. Dorothy is a native of Inowroclaw, Poland. Every morning, as the lady behind the counter, she offers a delightful greeting and delicious, piping-hot bread and rolls. This weekend on the corner of Exchange and Cabot streets, the culinary legacy of Zygmunt Czajka lovingly lives on.
Stephen R. Jendrysik, a retired history teacher, is Chicopee city historian, a member of the Chicopee Historical Society’s board of directors and president of the Edward Bellamy Memorial Association.
The little guys consume it without butter. They call it “boo-ka-bread.”
When we head south to Maryland to visit our granddaughters, we add a couple of Bob’s Bakery’s Polish rye breads and six of his incomparable paczki (jelly doughnuts) to our babka order.
This weekend I’ll be standing in line (hopefully inside the building) to pick up two special large braided Polish babkas.
In Polish American homes all over the Connecticut River Valley, on Wigilia - the traditional Christmas eve celebration - families will share the oplatek, the sacred wafer wishing good fortune and good health to all present.
As the family gathers at the table for the meatless feast of mushroom barzcz, kapusta and our famous homemade pierogis, the babkas from Bob’s Bakery will be carefully sliced to order. The kids at our house will tell you that the Czajka family makes the best “boo-ka-bread” in the world.
In the town of Nowe, near Gdansk in the northwestern part of Poland, Zygmunt Czajka, at the age of 12, was apprenticed to a baker. He studied baking in school, was taken prisoner by the Nazis and sent to a forced labor camp in Germany.
He worked first at a farm and, later, as a baker at several different sites in Germany. In 1945, in a camp for displaced persons, he met Wiktoria. They married a year later, and in 1949, with a baby son, the couple emigrated to the United States.
Zygmunt, now a baker by trade, got a job immediately in the City Bakery on Exchange Street. Later, he worked at the famous Stadnicki Bakery, also on Exchange Street. Both establishments specialized in Polish baked goods.
In 1965, the master baker purchased a three-story building on Exchange Street and opened his own bakery. The Czajka family lived above the bakery in the first year of the business.
Bob’s Bakery opened for business on Nov. 9, 1965 - the week of the Northeast power blackout. It wasn’t an auspicious opening, but it didn’t harm the development of the bakery into a landmark for people who love old-fashioned Polish rye bread, that is, bread made without additives or preservatives.
Forty-six years ago there were eight independent ethnic bakeries in Chicopee. Most featured Polish baked goods.
In truth, today, there is only one. This week the customers filling the store on Thursday, Friday and Saturday will have journeyed from the little bakery’s customer base, which during the holiday season extends to West Springfield, Springfield, Westfield, Holyoke and Longmeadow. Many also make a pilgrimage to the Exchange Street bakery from as far away as Hampshire and Franklin counties.
The Czajka family’s commitment to quality means the taste of the old country is lovingly duplicated everyday.
Paul Czajka graduated from Chicopee High School in 1978, went on to the computer program at Springfield Technical Community College and a job in Boston. Following his dad’s retirement, he took advantage of the opportunity of running the family business.
In retirement, though, his father was not satisfied in 1984 with the 48-bread per hour capacity of the original eight-pan oven manufactured by the Bolling Co. in Cleveland, Ohio. Working with the company, Zygmunt Czajka helped design a new, 24-pan rotary oven.
Today, the rotary oven, plus the motorized dough-mixer that can mix up to 125 pounds of flour at one time, are the only mechanical help Paul Czajka has. The rest is hand work as each piece of dough is molded and weighed before going to the oven.
Henry Filar interviewed young Paul Czajka for the Springfield Union-News in 1992, six years after Zygmunt Czajka had passed away in 1986. “I do everything the way my father taught me. He gave me his secrets on doing it well,” he said in the interview.
Czajka, who helped out in the family business as a boy, always speaks with respect and admiration about how his father taught him the baker’s trade.
“I can remember my father sitting in that chair,” he said, pointing to the chair in the mixing and oven section in the back of the store, “watching me mix dough, form loves of bread and pas try, and bake them- and tell me if I was going anything wrong.”
Under his father’s tutelage, Paul learned every part of the business from making the baked goods and waiting on customers to washing pots and pans and sweeping up.
The little bakery’s largest seller is the old-fashioned authentic Polish rye. This is not the rye bread you get at the supermarket.
Bob’s Bakery bakes babkas on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The raisin bread is their second best seller and our personal favorite.
Paul and Dorothy Czajka epitomize the meaning of a family business. Dorothy is a native of Inowroclaw, Poland. Every morning, as the lady behind the counter, she offers a delightful greeting and delicious, piping-hot bread and rolls. This weekend on the corner of Exchange and Cabot streets, the culinary legacy of Zygmunt Czajka lovingly lives on.
Stephen R. Jendrysik, a retired history teacher, is Chicopee city historian, a member of the Chicopee Historical Society’s board of directors and president of the Edward Bellamy Memorial Association.
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