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The more things change, the more they stay the same at Jarosch Bakery. It was 50 years ago that owner and president Ken Jarosch's grandfather, George, and father, Herb, opened the bakery. Today, it is located in the same suburban Chicago strip mall storefront that opened in 1959, using the same 24-tray deck oven that turned out Jarosch Bakery's first coffee cakes. And Ken Jarosch is again working his first job — though the pay is likely better than the 10 cents per hour he earned as a 10-year-old.

The bakery hasn't been Jarosch's only occupation, though. He and his wife, Kathy, were engineers at McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) before returning to Ken's family business in 1989. For five years, Ken re-learned his first trade from his father. By the time Herb passed away in 1994, Ken and Kathy were entrenched in the industry, and they have been at the helm of the bakery ever since.

“Over the years, we've made a lot of incremental adjustments,” Ken Jarosch says. “When the bakery opened, most of Elk Grove Village was under construction, and the bakery grew with the community. Though we're always paying attention to changes around us, we haven't made any major overhauls or felt the need to reinvent ourselves.” With more than 50 years of growth operating with a philosophy built on small moves instead of sweeping changes, the proof is in the pudding.

Despite the recent commodities crisis and recession, Jarosch Bakery has been profitable as long as Ken can remember. “Sometimes we've been nearly flat, but we've still made a small profit, which is saying something, considering how badly the restaurant industry overall is hurting.”

Jarosch attributes the relative success to the bakery's status as an inexpensive luxury, a cheap perk. While Elk Grove Village consumers might be hesitant to splurge on expensive dinners, they don't seem to mind spending $10 at Jarosch Bakery on a coffee cake.

The bakery brought in $2.6 million in sales in 2009, up from the industry's universally dismal 2008. What surprised Jarosch was that 2009 December sales also were up when compared to the healthier 2007 economy. The stabilization of commodities prices in mid-2008 coincided with the deepest portion of the recession, and when the price of flour finally came down, Jarosch passed the savings on to his customers by offering numerous specials. They perceived the price decrease as a good faith price break during hard times, which helped garner goodwill and brought in more customers.

Anchors of business

Jarosch Bakery produces a full line of products, from bread to sweetgoods to wedding cakes, but three product categories anchor the business — cookies, decorated cakes and coffee cakes/sweet rolls.

Jarosch Bakery's cookies, especially hand-dipped butter cookies, are well-known throughout the Chicago area. The bakery uses 70 to 100 lbs. of flour per week for cookies alone. After adding other ingredients, icing and sprinkles, that equates to 250 to 350 lbs. of cookies per week. In December, production ramps up to produce as much as a week's worth of cookies in one day. Variety, richness and the personal touch of hand dipping are the hallmarks of Jarosch Bakery's cookies.

Decorated cakes, also a mainstay at the bakery, have experienced a sales dip in recent years. “We are within a five-minute drive of at least one Sam's Club, one Walmart, one Costco, one Meijer, maybe more than one Jewel or Dominick's. That's our primary competition in decorated cakes, and their price points are something we can't match,” Jarosch says.