Gladstone Bakery to close Feb. 28 after nearly a century in business

After nearly a century in business, the mom-and-pop Gladstone Bakery — known for its Birds Nests and rainbow cakes — is going out of business due to the effects of the pandemic.

Now in an Elk Grove Village industrial building with a wholesale operation and small retail shop, Gladstone was long an iconic presence on Milwaukee Avenue on Chicago's Northwest Side.

Longtime, loyal customers found the bakery on Bennett Road, just a few blocks in from Arlington Heights Road, after its move there in 2004. And many more have returned in the last week since the bakery's owners announced on social media they're closing up shop at the end of the month.

It's a time for sweet memories, and even some tears, for customers who have visited or called to put in their final orders.

“Two ladies I had to calm down,” said owner Joseph LoChirco.

One of them had just lost her father, whose weekly ritual was stopping at the bakery after church on Sunday.

“They come in, they want to talk like the old days. That's what's amazing with my clientele,” LoChirco said. “But when I'm running the back, I'm running the front, I gotta produce.”

LoChirco has been running the bakery with a skeleton crew over the course of the last two years, going from a pre-pandemic staff of 22 to now only a couple of part-timers and retired bakers who have returned to help fill the final orders.

Like a lot of small businesses, LoChirco said it's been difficult to find help, but it's also the increased cost of supplies and materials that led him to the decision to close.

For example, a box of shortening that once went for $30 is now $109.

“It's one thing to work hard, but then try to figure out how to get materials and supply,” he said. “It ain't like construction. We can't wait til next week if there's a wedding Friday, and there's no cream cheese in December.”

Gladstone opened in 1925 — one of many bakeries that dotted the city's neighborhoods at that time. At the height of its business, Gladstone was baking hundreds of wedding cakes a week, in addition to a steady business around birthdays, holidays and other events.

LoChirco had worked for longtime owner Dean Hedeker when the business was known as Gladstone Park Bakery, and when it was located in the city neighborhood of the same name at Milwaukee and Austin avenues. After a stint as general manager at Central Continental Bakery in Mount Prospect, LoChirco was offered to buy Gladstone from Hedeker.

Following a land dispute in the city, LoChirco decided to move the bakery out to the suburbs, and used the opportunity to add a wholesale operation — catering to restaurants and hotels in Rosemont, Schaumburg and along Michigan Avenue.

“We said, ‘Let's go wholesale,' which worked out well. And it grew, grew and grew.”

Many of LoChirco's corporate clients came as a result of the longtime business relationships he developed as a Hyatt corporate pastry chef in the 1980s.

In fact, he says he'll never forget the order that came in from a purchaser at the United Center who had been in the Hyatt apprenticeship program with him decades before. After the Blackhawks' 2013 Stanley Cup victory, LoChirco was tasked with making a cake in the likeness of the famous championship trophy.

“I stayed up that afternoon and that night and made that cake, and brought it down to the parade,” he said. “That was the most memorable.”

Most people, though, will remember Gladstone for its Birds Nest — thin dough that's rolled into a big flower, fried, and rolled in sugar.

As in the past, the tri-colored chiffon rainbow cake has also been selling out daily as customers purchase the final batches.

The bakery's last day is Monday, Feb. 28.