Bostwick Bakery has opened a retail store in Comstock Park. The bakery at 4615 West River Drive, offers all kinds of sweets – donuts, cookies, pastries, scones, and muffins. They also serve breakfast sandwiches and lunch – burgers, hot dogs, chili dogs, sloppy joes, fries, and sandwiches. Drinks include coffee of course, plus milk, juice, hot chocolate, and soda. Within two weeks of the July 6 opening, fresh baked bread was also available.
There are four tables in the 1100 square foot shop where customers can sit and enjoy their sweets and coffee, as well as a coffee bar and soda fountain. There are six employees: four full-time and two part-time. At the end of the day, the employees bag up the baked goods like donuts and Food Share, a food pantry in Plainfield Township, picks them up. Leftover bread gets made into garlic chips.
The bakery is the second business to open in the new retail center on the northwest corner of West River Drive and Dodge Street, which formerly housed a Burger King restaurant. Dokl's Meat Market opened there in April. “They modified this building, and we thought the location, with the highway (131 Expressway) and West River Drive would be pretty busy,” said manager Houston Moyer, adding that business is picking up steadily since the opening. “The area in general is growing.”
The Comstock Park store is the third Bostwick Bakery retail store to open this year. The Greenville store opened in January and the Plainfield store opened in March. Mike Moyer, Houston’s father, bought the original Bostwick Bakery located near Bostwick Lake in Rockford in 1994, and the baking for all the retail stores is done in the nearby production facility. He had previously worked as an area manager for Burger King. Mike said he briefly opened a Bostwick Bakery restaurant on Alpine Avenue north of Six Mile Road and likes West River Drive better.
“I personally think it’s (West River Drive) a nicer road than Alpine, pretty but not as busy,” said Mike. “Comstock Park is a nice little area with the downtown, the Library, the Post Office.”
Mike Moyer said that when he bought the Rockford Bostwick Bakery, he sold the baked products wholesale to businesses like gas stations. Opening the retail stores this year is a change in strategy. He said the retail store business gives him more control over the product and is less work. He plans to open three or four more next year. Houston manages the Rockford store as well as the Comstock Park store. Mike’s daughter Izzy Moyer manages the Plainfield store, while Mike manages the Greenfield store.
The legal name of the company is Moyer Foods, but it is commonly known as just Bostwick Bakery.” In 2013 Mike Moyer bought Janie’s Cookies, a wholesale company with small retail outlets in malls.
(July 2017)