A 'sacred recipe'
Dec. 27—When Larry Bontrager toyed with the idea of selling the iconic The Duchess Bakery — today a Cullman donut-cake-cupcake destination but once a county staple from its bread-making days — it was almost a Willy Wonka remake.
As Roger Rich tells the tale, after owning the bakery — and its secret formulas — for generations, Bontrager had dozens of suitors show up when the business went up for sale in early 2020.
But who, among all of those applicants, would carry on the bakery tradition so lovingly nurtured by, most recently, Bontrager and before that, his father, who managed the bakery in earlier days, and others?
It couldn't be just anyone, and certainly not anyone solely interested in mere profits.
No, it had to be a family, and all the better, a family that had been deeply invested in the Cullman community. Only a family, the longtime baker reasoned, would guard and continue the history of handcrafted bakery goods his shop had been producing for more than eight decades.
And this, Rich said, is a large part of the reason why he and partners Jason and Stephanie Neal were plucked from more than 60 would-be buyers to carry on Bontrager's heritage.
"I think he liked that we were getting our families involved in it," said Rich, speculating on why he had been given the golden ticket. "We weren't just a couple of guys wanting to hire somebody to run it — not being involved. And, I think the fact that we were already in business established a little bit of credibility."
The Duchess Bakery has been family-owned and operated at its 1st Avenue SE location since 1939, and today it is still a family affair. Now, for Cullman's Neal and Rich families, it's almost always time to make the donuts — even if they didn't start out that way.
The Neals are Cullman natives and their business roots reach deep. Jason owns and operates the local branch of Liberty National Life Insurance. Stephanie runs the Active Adult Center for the Cullman City Parks and Recreation Department. Together, they have owned the Hanceville Dairy Queen since 2006.
Rich is also an Alabama native and a business colleague of Jason's, with more than three decades of experience at Liberty National, including an offshoot of the business in Florida.
Together, they have a lifetime of business experience. What they didn't have, when they bought The Duchess in January 2020, was bakery experience.
That quickly changed.
An important part of the immediate return on their investment was a crash — and exhaustive — course in owning and operating not only a bakery, but a bakery consistent with the products and values that generations of families had come to rely upon. Bontrager provided that education.
"That's why Larry was so valuable to us," Rich said. "He basically put us through school in a short period of time, and by that, I mean he went into science of baking — for four weeks. In fact, we found out that he had attended the American Institute of Baking in Manhattan, Kansas, and he basically brought that same course to us."
Rich and the Neals — and their mostly adult children — were fast studies. Despite the learning curve and renovations to add a bit of nostalgia to the shop — the newly tiled floor and ever-present blue-and-white bags complement a nearly century-old bread oven that is still used to produced cakes — the shop had very little downtime between sale and acquisition.
When it reopened in late July 2020, the line filled the block as a pandemic-hungry crowd waited to test what the bakery's kitchen could produce. Apparently, the bakers passed because business, brisk then, is even busier now — though not without a lot of effort and care going into it.
"Our people start at four in the morning cooking," Jason Neal said, to be ready with donuts when the shop opens at 7 a.m. and not just any donuts, but The Duchess Bakery donuts.
"The bakery has been very popular in past, and, as families, we know that and strive to make it even better. Having the recipe that we purchased, the sacred recipe, that was very important," Jason Neal said.
Also important to Rich and the Neals is that their mostly adult children — Laura Beth, Emily and Thomas Rich, and Olivia, Jordan and Thomas Neal — are constantly pitching in to build the business, although many are building careers of their own.
Equally important is that, pitching in still is Larry Bontrager — for quality control.
"Larry comes in every month to test the donuts," Rich said. "And when he leaves, he gives us a thumbs-up."
With healthy doses of hard work and innovation — the shop plans to have not only glazed donut-scented candles, but The Duchess Bakery-glazed donut-scented candles, and The Duchess Bakery glazed donut-flavored chapstick in addition to its other merchandise, ready for the holiday season — Jason Neal said he and his partners are looking to continue baking for Cullman County for generations to come.
To do that, he said, also requires a final ingredient: faith.
"The good Lord put it on us," he said. "And he's blessed us with it. and that's the reason why we instill in our people to get up every day and go to work to make sure we give a great product to our community. and they take a lot of pride in that. We have a great workforce and they work very hard to produce products that we all hope is very good tasting — because we like people coming back."
And as for the 4 a.m. starting time?
"We're providing a product that people enjoy," Neal said. "To me, that's not a hard business. Not when you're providing a product that the community enjoys. ... We want to work hard for their business."
