BEST SWEET TRADITION
The allure of a neighborhood bakeshop transcends time and place. At these community hubs, butter, sugar and eggs are transformed into pillowy doughnuts, luscious icing and delicate meringues to mark moments big and small. This spring, my 7-year-old daughter, Tilly, and I spent a weekend joining the morning rush at three longstanding institutions to capture little glimpses of daily life inside these local favorites. '
Trackside Donuts & Cafe, Bonita Springs
Bleary-eyed business folks in starched shirts queue with flip-flop-wearing tourists beneath the steepled red roof of Bonita Springs’ Trackside Donuts on an early morning. The former 1960s-era Dairy Queen stands as a beacon, drawing locals who pilgrimage across counties for old-fashioned fritters and yeasted loops glossy with glaze. As the procession shuffles forward, bakers waltz trays of still-warm doughnuts out of the kitchen. Unlike bakeries that use machines to produce doughnuts in bulk, Trackside rolls, stamps and twists each pastry by hand. The staff starts at 3 a.m. daily to fill and frost up to 36 varieties, from peanut butter and jelly to Key lime.
The honey-dipped and plate-sized apple fritters are the reigning favorites—and, consequently, first to sell out. Co-owner Dodie Pajer, who bought the 15-year-old shop in 2020, has just sold the last autumn-sweet knot as we reach the counter, so Tilly and I happily change our order to cherry. We head toward a line of turquoise tables, where two men wave their white plastic forks in the air and tip their coffee. I smile at their Friday tradition before breaking our fritter in half and taking a bite. The crisp vanilla glaze gives way to a soft, slightly sweet dough studded with tart, ruby-red fruit. My little one smacks her lips and widens her eyes. “Do you like it?” I ask, knowing the answer.
Photography by Anna Nguyen
Photo by Anna Nguyen
Photography by Anna Nguyen
Photography by Anna Nguyen
Mikkelsen’s Pastry Shop, Naples
At the North Naples bakeshop, a little girl and her brother clasp the window ledge. Co-owner Paw Mikkelsen, who grew up whipping eggs and sugar into stiff peaks, first at his parents’ bakery in Denmark, then at The Ritz-Carlton, Boston, is carving a teddy bear out of chocolate, whittling the dense mass into a lifelike cub. A trail of customers snakes from the door to the pastry case, gradually emptying it of almond croissants, chocolate eclairs, petits fours and chocolate tuxedo strawberries. Tilly and I share a slice of lemon cake blanketed in thick, bittersweet European buttercream so rich it can only be described as velvet.
For 25 years, Neapolitans have marked their milestones with one of Mikkelsen’s custom confections. Paw’s wife, co-owner and fellow Ritz alum, Elizabeth, warmly greets each customer, often conversing with families who’ve come to the bakery for generations. As the morning rush dies down, she begins tallying the cake orders: a chocolate marquis for a husband’s retirement, a Stetson-topped vanilla sponge with lemon curd and blueberries for a baby shower and pearl-encrusted tiers for a spring wedding. The bride’s parents had a Mikkelsen’s wedding cake, too, and returned to the bakery every year thereafter for their daughter’s birthday. As Tilly and I take our final bites, she wonders aloud if she can have her own this year—an 8th birthday marked in chocolate velvet.
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Photography by Anna Nguyen
swfl family run bakeries mikkelsens napoleans
As mom-and-pop bakeshops vanish, these three institutions stand as community anchors. At Mikkelsen’s, co-owner Elizabeth Mikkelsen (next photo) greets customers as her husband, Paw, whips up bite-sized confections.
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Photography by Anna Nguyen
swfl family run bakeries mikkelsens baker
European-American Bakery Cafe, Fort Myers
“Do you have Kringle?” a Danish grandmother asks. The girl behind the counter at Fort Myers’ European-American Bakery Cafe (EA Bake) pulls out an array of braided dough, each revealing fruit, poppy seeds or nuts beneath a shower of icing or powdered sugar. Tilly joins the woman’s grandchildren in chanting for strawberry, eager to try what reminds her of a store-bought Danish but is something else altogether—the lighter, more delicate texture cradling bites of ripe strawberry preserve.
Part European bakery and part hash-slinging diner, EA Bake has been a community staple since 1977, when Macedonian immigrants Zlata and Sam Savich relocated her family’s European bakery from Detroit to Southwest Florida. The bakeshop is one of the city’s few remaining bastions of traditional, old-fashioned European pastries, crafted from recipes that have been passed down through generations. Each morning, regulars file in looking for a sticky slice of baklava or a pillowy Portuguese sweet bread—finding little enclaves of their home countries along our sandy shores. Among the customer favorites are the Italian cookies, like amaretto biscotti and lacy Florentines. My daughter passes me an Italian rainbow cookie, its dense tricolor almond sponge threaded with apricot and raspberry jam. “This tastes like Nonna’s,” she says.
As we return to the car, the seats still strewn with little bags of cookies, I reflect on each bakery. What might we lose if they were to vanish as so many mom-and-pop bakeshops have? These community anchors are grounded in traditional techniques, culinary identity and personal relationships—an alchemy that’s impossible to achieve with mass-production. Tilly isn’t preoccupied with such philosophical questions. “Can we do this every weekend?” she asks with a smile, her cheeks as red as cherries.