Meet Bob and Ginny Spindler, Owners of Spindler's Bakery

Welcome back to Down the Boulevard, a feature on Hasbrouck Heights Patch where we ask the business owners in our town a few questions about their business and themselves. This week get to know Bob and Ginny Spindler.

For those who know the Spindler family and therefore their cookies, cakes and pastries, it can be hard to believe there was ever a time they weren’t behind the counter at their Boulevard bakery shop.

Bob and Ginny Spindler reopened their bakery last September after a 22 year break. And they are back in the exact same location where Bob’s parents had first started the bakery business back in 1956.  Although the bakery had changed hands from different owners during those two decades, there are many things that still managed to remain the same.

The shop still has the same original design it had back when it first opened including the same layout and original display cases. Ginny pointed to the brass-looking string holders that hang down behind the counters which have also been there since the shop opened. In addition to classic feel of the shop and sweet smelling baked goods, there is that added history of the Spindler family as many photos showing different generations of the family hang from the walls.

Bill and Marie Spindler, Bob’s parents, had first made the bakery a staple in the community in the 1950s. In the 1980s, Ginny and Bob took over the business. The two had actually met at the bakeshop when Ginny began working there when she was a teen.

In 1988 the couple made the difficult decision to close the shop so they could focus their time on their own family. But years later they talked about opening a bakery once again. In 2010 they noticed their old Boulevard location was once again vacant. They took it as a sign to reopen and now they are back to baking morning, noon and night.

Baking has always been a part of Bob’s life he says. When summer breaks came around he didn’t need to go out and look for a summer job, he just automatically had one right at the bakery. Many of the family recipes are back, including his secret crumb cake recipe, something he would never reveal even if one were to put splinters up his fingernails, he joked. The business is expanding as well, as now their butter cookies, another known specialty, are now being carried at area Shop Rite locations such as Little Falls and Oakland.

It’s no surprise the baking never stopped during those years they were not in business. Ginny said they’d always make their butter cookies and they would give them out as gifts, especially around the holidays.

Ginny chuckled as she recalled how friends would hint they would always welcome more Spindler's goods. Their friends would always bring back the cookie tins they received as gifts to which Ginny would insist they keep but they would always say, “we were hoping you’d refill it.”