Highland Park Market in Farmington, Conn. is not Robyn Bonini's neighborhood grocery store. But it is her favorite. She regularly drives miles out of her way for the in-store bakery's fresh fruit tart and chocolate mousse cake.

That kind of customer loyalty is one of the major reasons the bakery departments at Highland Park Market's six suburban Hartford stores account for an average of 8 percent of total store sales, which average $750,000 annually per location, explains Bakery Director Robert Thatcher. During the holidays, bakery sales can account for up to 16 percent of total sales. Thatcher attributes Highland Park Market bakeries' 3 1/2 to 4 percent sales increases during the past few years to an expansion of product variety and consistent quality.

Plans: add Cuban rolls and ciabatta to product line, open a 4,000-sq.-ft. central commissary

Each store averages about 20,000 sq. ft., with 750 sq. ft. dedicated to the bakery. Four cross-trained staffers per store turn out a full line of items from crusty breads and rolls to cookies and custom cakes from their exhibition production and decorating space.

About 70 percent of the pastry items are made from scratch; almost all of the 26 varieties of loaves and rolls are par-baked or proof-and-bake doughs. Most of the locations' bakery sales are split evenly between breads and pastries. The exception is Farmington, with 70 percent of sales coming from pastries while bread makes up the remaining 30 percent.

About 80 percent of the products in each of the full-line bakery departments are sold from a 6-ft. long refrigerated service case. At most of the stores, the other 20 percent, which are packaged, baked-on-premise or RTU items, are displayed on tables and shelves and in baskets in the department's 6 ft. of dry space.

Highland Park's newest location in South Windsor, which opened about three years ago, had a 25-ft., four-shelf, wrought iron display custom made to prominently showcase the breads and other non-refrigerated and packaged items. That's a long way from the company's first bakery in its original Manchester store, which sold muffins, other breakfast items and cakes on a lopsided display table. During its early years, the department brought in an average of $3,000 per week.

Planned expansion

The original 900-sq.-ft. Manchester location, which was built in 1886 as a dry goods store, became a grocery when John Devanney purchased it in 1957. Several expansions by Devanney and his six children increased the store size to 16,000 sq. ft.

Family members opened a second store in nearby Coventry in 1976, followed by a third location in Glastonbury in 1992. The following year, John Devanney's son Timothy became the company's owner when he bought out his siblings, and in 1995, brought the concept to Farmington and expanded the Manchester store to its current 20,000-sq.-ft. size to house the bakery and deli departments.

The Suffield location followed in 2000 and South Windsor in 2005. All of the stores are situated within a 30-mile radius of the original Manchester location.

Bakery became a major part of the business about 15 years ago when a 6-ft. long refrigerated case was mistakenly delivered to the Gastonbury store rather than the dry case that had been ordered. Instead of sending the refrigerated case back, the bakery staff began using it to display and sell slices of store-baked cakes.

Based on the initial success of this experiment, the store added more desserts. Refrigerated and additional dry cases were then added to the Manchester and Coventry bakery departments to accommodate more expansive dessert displays.

Another serendipitous event was the introduction of fresh fruit tarts as a promotional product for the grand opening of the Farmington store.

“We ran one ad for Mother's Day, and the response was overwhelming,” Thatcher says. “Since then, every Mother's Day weekend, the stores sell a total of between 500 and 600 fruit tarts.”

At Farmington, which sells about 200 of that holiday total, the bakery borrows the salad bar from the deli, moves it to the back, fills it with cut-up fruit and hires college students to top the tarts production-line style, he explains. The rest of the year, the Farmington store averages about 40 fruit tarts a week; the other locations each average about 20.

Highland Park uses frozen puff pastry crusts coated with coarse sugar for its 9-in. fruit and razzleberry tarts. Because the sugar-coated puff crusts only are available in the larger size, individual-size tarts are made with shortbread crusts.

While the regular fruit tarts are filled with vanilla custard, the deluxe razzleberry version is filled with a mixture of mascarpone, whipped cream, sugar and kirsch. The inside of the puff shell is coated with chocolate for extra crispness and flavor. Strawberries, blackberries and blueberries are arranged on the tart's top.

For the large neighboring Swedish community, Highland Park Market began making Swedish cardamom bread and almond braids from scratch as a holiday promotion years ago. Both have become year-round signature items, popular with customers of all ethnic groups.

Both of the braided products are made from the same basic dough, which is made twice a week. Each batch yields about 30 circular wreath-like cardamom breads and 12 oblong almond paste-filled braids. During the Easter and Christmas holidays, production jumps to 120 to 150 cardamom breads and 50 to 60 almond braids per store per week.

After mixing, the dough must rest for 1 1/2 hours before it is hand-cut, braided and the almond variety snipped epi-style with scissors. Another 15-minute rest follows before baking.