Village Bakery

108 East Oak St., West, TX - (254) 826-5151

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Posted By Michael Stern on 12/25/2012 7:23:00 AM

If you’ve eaten around the heart of Texas – or were raised by a Czech baker – you likely know about kolaches, the uber-Danish that was brought to the Lone Star State by central European immigrants and is now THE popular morning pastry. We’ve yet to have a really bad one, but if you want to have it at its source, the place to go is the town of West, just off I-35 north of Waco.

"Kolace [Czech spelling] are sold warm from the oven," assures the movable-letter menu above the counter at the Village Bakery, a shop with three small tables and one circular ten-seat seminar table that hosts an ad hoc community coffee klatch throughout most mornings. The coffee drinkers gasped as if they were watching fireworks when we sat at their table, pulled a kolache apart, and a cloud of steam puffed upwards. They had directed us to try apricot and prune, intriguing dour fillings that proved to be scarcely as sweet as the dough itself. They're the flavors favored by old-timers, as are poppy seed and cottage cheese. The coffee drinkers told us that tourists tend to like fruitier versions – apple, strawberry, blueberry – as well as those made with cream cheese.

Fruit and cheese kolaches are Old World standards; the Village Bakery added a Tex-American turn to tradition in the early 1950s when baker Wendell Montgomery, worrying that his big loaves of sausage bread weren't selling well, asked his mother-in-law to come up with a snack-sized version that included sausage links. Known as klobasniki, the savory pastries are now popular throughout the state.

Scorecard

Overall: One of the Best - Worth a Trip

Kolache	Cinnamon Roll

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"A selection of kolaches from the Village bakery. The front-row is a trio of klobasniki, which are filled with savory sausage rather than sweet preserves."
Michael Stern

"An elegant alternative to the kolache, Village Bakery's light, fresh cinnamon roll is especially good with coffee."
Michael Stern

"Experienced Roadfooders recognize this sight as a sure sign of a worthy place to eat: the big communal table where townsfolk gather in the morning to have coffee and share news and gossip and, in this case, to eat dozens of kolaches."
Michael Stern

"For over half a century, the Village Bakery has been supplying the people of West, Texas, with good breads, pies, and kolaches. For anyone traveling along I-35 north of Waco, it's an easy-access culinary landmark."
Michael Stern