THE BEST OF TWO HISTORIC BAKERIES MAKES RENZEMA’S A SWEET CLASSIC

By Dave Person david.r.person@gmail.com

Doug and Cathy Knibbe are carrying on the tradition of not one, but two popular Kalamazoo area bakeries at Renzema’s Bakery in Parchment.

In 2001, Doug Knibbe , who had been a baker at Malnight’s Bakery in downtown Kalamazoo for 17 years, bought both Malnight’s and Renzema’s, consolidating the baking for both operations at the Parchment location, 214 Link Lane.

He kept both bakeries open until 2005, when he closed Malnight’s, which had been in business since 1919. Although the Malnight’s name ceases to exist as a bakery, Knibbe has continued to sell its popular products at Renzema’s.

“It was kind of a merger of the two businesses,” Knibbe says of his purchase of the bakeries.

Malnight’s was known for its cakes, wholesale breads, including burger buns, and puff pastries. Renzema’s sold bread and doughnuts.

Both bakeries made cookies, and Knibbe has continued making the best of both bakeries.

“We both had chocolate chip; we both had oatmeal raisin,” he says, adding that he continues to make Malnight’s chocolate chip cookies and Renzema’s oatmeal raisin cookies.

He also makes Malnight’s popular clown cookies, which continue to be a hot seller. He uses Malnight’s buttercream icing on both cakes and cookies. All of those products, in addition to pies during the holidays, are available either wholesale or at the Renzema’s location,

“This store has done really well over the years,” Knibbe, 58, says of Renzema’s.

“I can remember coming in here as a kid,” he says. His mother would stock up on bread for her family, which included Knibbe and his five siblings. Both Malnight’s and Renzema’s had been in their respective families for generations.

Robert Malnight, from whom Knibbe bought Malnight’s, took over that bakery from his parents and maternal grandparents, who founded it. His children and some of his grandchildren worked in the bakery as well.

William Renzema was a third-genera- tion baker when he opened Renzema’s in Parchment. His grandfather was the first to open a bakery, in 1878 in the Netherlands, according to a 1978 Kalamazoo Gazette story.

Three of Renzema’s children became bakers, Knibbe says, and Knibbe purchased the bakery from son Pete, who had continued to operate the Parchment location.

The Knibbes also have made Renzema’s a generational business, with all three of their children having worked there, and the oldest of their three grandchildren, Ana Sturdy, 10, currently there on Saturdays with her mother, Kate Sturdy, who is the Knibbes’ daughter.

“She waits on people,” and also takes phone orders, Knibbe says of Ana, who has been helping there since she was 7. Knibbe says it was important for his children to work there, and now for his granddaughter to take an interest.

“I think it’s so good for kids to work,” he says.

Knibbe recalls that when he was young, Renzema’s was a popular destination for the Kalamazoo area’s Dutch population.

“This was … (one of the only places) you could get a lot of that Dutch food,” says Knibbe, noting that most traditional Dutch food is now available at Meijer and other large stores. taken,” Doug Knibbe says.

He continues to make and sell bankets, a sweet Dutch pastry filled with almond paste, however, and he adds raisins to some of the doughnuts and the nutty Persians.

“Dutch people always like raisins,” says Knibbe, who also is of Dutch descent, as is his wife.

“She just did the books pretty much right from the start,” Knibbe says. She also runs the sales portion of the business while he is in charge of the baking, coming in around 7:30 each evening and working until the wee hours of the next morning, after which he makes deliveries of baked goods to coffee shops, restaurants and the like.

The Knibbes have 11 employees, most of whom are part time, split between sales and baking.

Knibbe says his father was a mason, and he always expected to be a builder, but when he graduated from Kalamazoo Christian High School in 1984 there weren’t many construction jobs available.

His sisters were working at Malnight’s and they informed Knibbe of an opening there for a baker. He applied for the job with Robert Malnight, who hired him.

All the education he received was what he learned on the job.

“I like learning with my hands,” he says.

All the better for Cathy. “When it’s busy, it’s fun,” she says.

“Cathy is really good at making this a positive place,” Doug Knibbe says of his wife of 34 years.

Knibbe says as soon as he bought the two bakeries he and Cathy went to Sam’s Club to buy a computer and a bookkeeping program and Cathy taught herself how to handle the financial part of the businesses.

Up front, meanwhile, Cathy Knibbe enjoys getting to know Renzema’s customers, many of whom are regulars, especially on Fridays, Renzema’s busiest day.

“Fridays pretty much every seat is

Renzema’s, which is open 6 a.m. until noon Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. until noon on Saturday and closed Sunday, hasn’t changed much in appearance since the Knibbes took over, which is just the way the customers seem to like it, Cathy says.

“You take a picture off the wall and they all go crazy,” she jokes.

But the restaurant has added a new feature recently, thanks to a longtime customer who is divesting himself of his collection of more than 400 cookie jars, bringing a few to the Knibbes during each of his three weekly visits. The cookie jars are now on proud display at the bakery.