6 minute read
Shop offers neon smiles across generations
by Shaw Media
By: Jessi Haish LaRue
ervice with a smile and a smiley face cookie. That’s what Elleson’s Bakery has been serving since 1987. Elleson’s Bakery, 344 W. State Street in Sycamore, has long been known for its assorted pastries, donuts, pies, cinnamon bread and decorated cookies. Some people know the bakery for its booths that sit right inside the shop’s front windows. But it’s the neon yellow smiley face cookies that always seem to leave a lasting impression, said owner Ken Elleson. “I used to give little kids with sad faces a smiley face cookie,” he said. “People come up to me now and say ‘I remember you! You gave me a smiley face cookie!’ And now they have kids of their own.” Some of those “kids” even order the famous cookies for their own weddings. It’s all in the family formula, he said. Elleson has been working with family formulas, not recipes, for as long as he can remember. “Recipes are cooking, adding flavors,” he explained.. “Baking is more like chemistry because every ingredient has a reaction, a purpose. If it’s just a little bit off, it’s not good.” The long line of family bakers goes back to his great great grandfather, who started a bakery in Davenport, IA, in 1897. A photo of his relative hangs proudly in the lobby of the Sycamore bakery. His parents had a shop in Morris where he learned the trade. He went on his own in 1979.
“We’re like farmers, we go way back,” Elleson said. The same still rings true for his family today. His grandfather, parents, aunts and uncles have all owned and operated bakeries. He has three brothers that own bakeries. Here in Sycamore, his wife and children work with him. He’s preparing his sons, David and Andrew, to take over the Sycamore shop, and he hopes to retire in the next few years. “You just do it,” Elleson said of his schedule, which involves going in at midnight each night to start baking. “My dad always told me ‘you get out what you put in.’ If you work hard, they’ll treat you good. I guess that’s why I work seven days a week.” Things have changed since he first started, but the concept is the same, he said. He stressed that everything is scratch made. “Over the years you have to adapt,” he said. “We used to get lard from pig farms, eggs from chicken farms but now there’s rules and you can’t do that anymore. We’ve had to alter a little bit but all the formulas are handed down.” While they serve bakery favorites such as donuts and bread, their most popular item is their “world famous cinnamon bread.” His first customer at his original shop in Kewanee drives to Sycamore just to pick up loaves of the cinnamon bread. “Stuff like that just keeps you going,” he said. “We really do use the best ingredients. We still bake the way my grandfather did. Everything is handmade, fresh and no preservatives. We’re just old fashioned, we’re the real McCoys.” However, he said the industry is somewhat of a “dying breed.” “We do everything, we’re the manufacturer,” he said. “We’re not a store where you take a product out of a cardboard box. It’s hard work and sometimes a crummy life because you do work nights. But we’re proud of our work.” Bonnie Boan has worked at the bakery for more than a decade, and does “everything but the baking,” she said. “Ken is a really nice guy, a sweetheart,” she said. “This place is very family oriented and you really get to know people.” Elleson’s first bakery may have been in Kewanee, but he always wanted to be in Sycamore. Once the opportunity to purchase his current building came up, he jumped the chance. He still thanks Clifford Danielson, Betsy Smith and Hays Knodle for helping him secure the loan for the building, where he’s been ever since. He said he owes everything to those three people. “I was 28 [years old] and didn’t have a dime,” he said. “They took me to the bank. By the time I was back in Kewanee, the phone was ringing and it was ‘you got the loan!’”
Elleson said he has always loved Sycamore, and fondly remembers the early days, which featured downtown businesses such as Henderson’s and Ace Hardware. “You could not find a parking spot in downtown Sycamore back then, you were just driving all around,” he said. He said while Sycamore has been a loyal location, he’s always happy to have met so many regulars from Genoa, DeKalb, and beyond. They even have regulars that visit from southern Illinois and Wisconsin. “I’ve had some great friends and met a lot of great people here,” he said. “I’ve had some great employees here. I don’t have anything bad or negative to say about this town. It’s just a great place to raise a family and they’ve always treated me well; they’ve supported me.” In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Elleson gave back to his community the best way he knows how: through his baking. In early 2020, grocery stores were running low on essential items such as baked bread. Elleson started baking 100 loaves of bread a day and charged just $1 per loaf to cover his cost of ingredients. “That just shows how I feel about Sycamore,” he said. “You have to give back.”
