Neighborhood place

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By Jennifer DeWitt | Saturday, May 20, 2006 12:24 AM CDT | () comments

Kevin E. Schmidt/QUAD-CITY TIMES East Side Bakery owner Nikki Schutter is open for business in a historic building in east-central Davenport.

For Nikki Schutter, opening her East Side Bakery is a chance to fulfill a longtime dream. But it also is a chance for the building to reclaim its role as a neighborhood gathering place.

Located at 1330 E. 12th St., just west of the Village of East Davenport, the building has served the Mount Ida neighborhood for more than 120 years — first as Mount Ida Meat Market, later as Holst’s Market and most recently as Cases & Kegs.

A native of Montana, Schutter found herself facing a potential job transfer to South Dakota. Instead, she decided to stay put and start her own business. “My kids have always bugged me to try to sell my food. This was the opportunity to do that,” she said. “I’ve been tweaking my recipes for 20 years.”

Schutter, who lives in the Mount Ida neighborhood, spotted the renovation that Bruce and Suzanne Brocka were doing to the building.

“They had revealed that old ’40s sign and I thought ‘I hope they don’t re-side that building,’” she said. At the time she was not even thinking of it for her business venture. To her delight, the Brockas hope to restore the Peter Pan Bread sign.

Schutter said the building’s history was part of the appeal. “It’s neat to wonder what it was like when the old neighborhood meat market was here.”

Though she was confident about her baking skills, Schutter was less sure of how to start a business so she enrolled in the Small Business Development Center’s Boot Camp for Entrepreneurs to learn to develop a business plan and other aspects of the business ownership.

“It is a big risk, but I just feel good about it from the neighborhood reaction,” Schutter said.

Her menu will offer items for breakfast, lunch and dinner, including pastries, breads, Italian beef sandwiches, Chicago-style Vienna Beef hot dogs and pizza, made by Schutter with her own recipes. Breads will include baguettes, Italian loaves/rolls, sourdough and white and whole wheat sandwich loaves.

An open house will be 5-8 p.m. today. Store hours will be 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. It will be closed Mondays. The telephone is (563) 323-1475.

Bruce Brocka said East Side Bakery not only is a great fit for the building, but also for the neighborhood. Located a block away from what once was the Mount Ida Bakery, he said it will be good to have a bakery back. “There’s always been a bakery in the village, I’m crossing my fingers.”

The building is part of the Brocka’s own mission for “Restoring East Davenport, One House at a Time” — as his business card says. Also a homeowner in the neighborhood, he now owns 14 buildings in the area, including the bakery and several rental homes, some along the same stretch of East 12th Street.

He said his Summit Lane Properties business was born out of necessity. “We’d lived here about 10 years when the neighborhood started having drug problems. We really went into survival mode” and a business was born.

When he bought the bakery, he envisioned it as “a clubhouse” where he could store things for his rehab business or turning it into loft apartments. But he’s excited to have Schutter and the bakery instead, because, as a fellow neighborhood resident, “she understands this area.”

Jennifer DeWitt can be contacted at (563) 383-2318 or jdewitt@qctimes.com.