Macedonians Make Cleveland's Best Chocolate
Macedonians in Cleveland have had a well-kept secret - Baker Candies, Inc.
Louis Bakracheff (Baker), who immigrated in 1915 from Vishani, Kostursko, Aegean Macedonia, started Baker Chocolates in 1921. He sold the delicacies wholesale to local stores such as Higbees, The May Company, the Nut Hut and the Nut Kitchen.
Using a recipe he brought from Macedonia, he created a one-of-a-kind chocolate treat – a creamy, marshmallow filled egg. Today, the same secret recipe, still written in the old Cyrillic alphabet, is used to make Baker’s famous Whips.
The company still makes all kinds of mouth-watering chocolate goodies such as nut clusters, fruit assortments, creams, chewies, cherry cordials, pecan terrapins (pecans and caramel), nut mallows (maraschino and walnuts) and Macedonian mints - "our answer to the French mint," says company president Kathy (Alushefl) Galgoczy.
Kathy is the third generation of her family to own and operate Bakers. Louis Bakracheff was her mother’s uncle, and in the early 1950s, Kathy’s parents Zorka and the late Chris Alusheff bought the business from him.
"The fourth generation is in the wings with my beautiful daughter Jaimie Hasenhohrl and my nephew Chris Alusheff beginning to learn the business," explains Kathy. Jaimie has been working at Baker’s since she was 10 and continues to lend a hand during holidays. Chris, who is nearly 16 years old, spent last summer cleaning the chocolate tanks and belts to begin learning the business from the bottom up. Chris even got some air time last Easter when Cleveland’s 19 Action News did a story on Baker Candies.
"I’ve been running around here since I was two years old. On my 14th birthday, I got my work permit and have been here, on and off, my entire life," notes Kathy who adds that her sister Vickie Glavinos and brother Tom Alusheff also worked in the business.
"My parents began to think of retiring in the mid-1980s, and they were going to sell the business to strangers. I was a nurse and fast becoming burned out. My brother was a policeman, and my sister was raising three beautiful daughters.
"It was time for a change. So we bought the business from them to continue the third generation of our Macedonian family as candy makers," says Kathy.
Sixty years ago in 1946, Louis Bakracheff moved Baker Candies to its present location at 16131 Holmes Avenue, the Collingwood area of northwest Cleveland. It was an area where many people from various eastern European countries settled and raised their families.
When the Alusheffs bought the company in the early 1960s, they opened a retail outlet. That’s when the Collingswood customers began to walk through the door and Baker’s famous Whips took off. Today they are shipped all over the world.
Customers may have left the Collingwood area, the state or even the country; yet, they continue to come back year after year because it is a "family tradition to come to Baker’s for Easter" or "we have to have the Whips for the holiday."
With the Alusheffs at the helm, Baker Candies enjoyed the attention of local media on several occasions.
Following the Cleveland Browns loss to the Denver Broncos in the 1988 AFC Championship game, then - Cleveland Mayor George Voinovich sent a box of Whips along with other Cleveland products to the Mayor of Denver to satisfy a friendly wager between two rival cities.
Since Kathy became president, she opened another retail outlet in Willoughby Hills on Cleveland’s east side.
"Hopefully, we’ll be working on a Web site this summer and looking for one more retail location. "My theory is ’keep it small and don’t sacrifice quality for quantity’," says the third generation Macedonian to run Cleveland’s best and most renowned chocolate company.
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