Originally published Saturday, July 5, 1997

By JON HAHN  
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

The man bent down alongside the old yellow Labrador retriever lying at the base of the parkway tree, biting down just enough to hold a huge glazed doughnut in his mouth while using both hands to untie the dog's leash.

The dog thumped his tail and slowly got up to finish their morning walk. And the man turned to the young couple in blueberry-stained whites and smiled. "We walked by once and could smell everything. I just couldn't walk by twice ... without stopping!"

Clutching what was left of his doughnut, he smiled as he and his dog continued their morning walk along East Madison Street.

Terry and Karen Hofman smiled, too. They don't usually take a mid-morning break out here at the little green sidewalk tables and chairs. But as the relatively new owner/operators of the vintage Madison Park Bakery, they are pleased with the positive feedback.

"I can't explain the reward I feel when we get something like that, something about the individual customer's appreciation," said Karen, a 38-year-old Ellensburg native.

"Yeah, it's hard work, and it's nice to hear things like that from the front line," said 44-year-old Terry, whose 12-hour days are worked mostly at the back of the small bakery.

The couple, now married "about a year," were sweethearts for eight years before they became business partners in the bakery, buying it about four years ago. And they've made small changes, quietly and slowly, because change isn't accepted readily in Madison Park.

"We had to get a permit for the tables and chairs; there were those few inside, but there were none outside before," Karen said. "And after we planted that little flower garden under the tree, we actually got some complaints. It was too much of a change for some people," she said, nodding toward the delightful little 4-foot square of blooming annuals beneath the nearby parking strip tree.

The man with the Labrador is a local. And Terry and Karen are getting to know many of the others by first name. But many of the customers come from Magnolia, Bellevue and even more distant destinations on the Seattle freeway grid. They come because of the shop's reputation for quality and old-fashioned favorites, like the butter-laden Parker House rolls.

For almost 50 years, the Madison Park Bakery's front Dutch door has opened either half or all the way onto that sidewalk, oozing the rich aromas of fresh-baked doughnuts and Danish sweet rolls into this outpost neighborhood. Under Fred Stoll and his father, Herman, the bakery had a well-established reputation for everything from cookies to a dozen types of bread.

"And those doughnuts. We're one of the few local bakeries that still do fresh doughnuts every morning. The customers expect them fresh every day," said Terry. Specialty cakes, like a sinfully decadent ganache cake, also have been added to the bakery's repertoire, Karen said.

Extra staff also has been added. Several part-timers work the front counter while Belgian-born and trained baker Gilbert Rots does "a whole lot of everything" in the back, "including building us a brand-new storage shed we desperately needed," Terry said. Terry and Karen also have had to replace the old shop's flooring. "And we need more refrigeration space, more storage space . . . more everything-space," he said, waving his arms around the piled-high back room world of pans, baking sheets and supplies.

Terry thought he knew about early work starts in the almost dozen years he worked as a tool designer and team facilitator at Boeing. Now he begins making doughnuts and Danish sweet rolls several hours before the people down the street can see even the hint of dawn over Lake Washington.

And Karen had done architectural drafting at the Big B for several years, too. "I used to pass her cubicle all the time, and one thing led to another. . .," Terry explained.

What those jobs led to was Terry's burnout like a too-long-baked muffin, and Karen's being chopped as a contract employee. But the romance from Cubicle Land lasted, and they went in search of a happy ending . . . which was really a new beginning.

"I'd always thought, as long ago as high school, that I wanted a business of my own," she said. "And that (getting chopped from Boeing) was the time to do it." Terry went first in search of an old ambition. "I wanted to be a writer; I still think I could be," he said.

But they decided a small business was the risk worth taking. "We looked at a restaurant and deli in Lynnwood, but then someone showed us this place, and that was it," Karen said.

"It" turned out to be a four-month joint apprenticeship in a sweatshop. Neither Terry nor Karen had any baking experience. And the previous owner training them advised them to keep the air conditioning off. Not until they were up to their elbows in dough and on their own did they learn that air conditioning didn't adversely affect baking.

They also learned that working every day wasn't their idea of a better life. "Baking is probably the most labor-intensive work you can imagine, and 12-hour days here were like boot camp at first," Terry volunteered. "They're still long, so we figured five long days each week were enough."

So they have continued the Stolls' longtime practice of closing Sundays and Mondays. Of course, there are occasional special-order cakes for weddings and banquets that might require some extra Saturday or Sunday work. But for the regular walk-in trade, the hours remain 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday through Friday. Saturday closings are 5:30 p.m.

"We also close down the week after Christmas (some Boeing traditions don't die easily) and maybe the week after Easter, as well as major holidays," Terry added.

One week without fresh bakery doughnuts must shake even the firm daily routines of comfortable old Madison Park.

Jon Hahn is a staff columnist who writes three times a week in the P-I.