Past owners restore piece of Sykora Bakery history

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Auction lot No. 219 was mislabeled as a coffee bean grinder, but Don and Sheila Janda knew exactly what it was.

As owners of the iconic Sykora Bakery in Czech Village during the 1990s, the couple regularly used the metal device to crush poppy seed for their kolaches, a beloved Czech pastry.

Related: End of an era for Sykora Bakery

After operating a bed & breakfast in Homestead, Iowa, the two had purchased the landmark bakery in December 1993 from Lester Sykora, one of the sons of original owners Joseph and Clara Sykora.

Originally a saloon called the Dew Drop Inn, the building was constructed at 73 16th Ave. SW in 1900. Charles and Anna Kosek opened the first Czech bakery at the site in 1903 as the C.K. Kosek Bakery. Joseph Sykora, who worked for the Koseks, bought the business in 1927.

Sykora and his wife, Clara, owned and operated Sykora Bakery for nearly 40 years, and lived above the bakery. The couple had four children: Ernest, Elsie, Lumir and Lester, with the latter three following in their parents’ footsteps.

Elsie worked the front, while Lumir and Lester, who assumed ownership after their parents died, baked in the back. Lester continued operating the bakery after Lumir died in 1969. Elsie Sykora Elias died in 1993.

“We wanted to do something with our Czech heritage and I knew Lester,” Don said, noting that none of the Sykora family at that time was able to continue operating it. “He hated to see it close.” Lester’s only child, and wife, Wilma, had both died in 1993 of cancer.

Lester and Don and Sheila Janda planned a transition period for the bakery and the couple pledged to keep everything the same: the name, recipes such as the caraway rye bread, and Czech pastries, including the local favorite poppy seed kolaches. When the couple bought the bakery, kolaches were 35 cents each or three for $1.

After working at Sykora Bakery for 66 years, however, Lester died in February 1994 at age 75, just a month after the couple took possession of the bakery. Cousins George and Tony Sykora stayed on and taught Don and Sheila techniques for baking the Czech breads and pastries, using original recipes from Lester.

That included using the poppy seed crusher, a custom-made piece of equipment dating back to around 1939.

At that time, Joseph Sykora had asked his friend, local businessman Howard Hall, to help make a machine that would be able to crush a large volume of poppy seed for the thriving bakery. Don noted that traditional Czech bakers used a mortar and pestle to crush poppy seed to make filling for their pastries.

The most important step in the process breaks down the seeds to release the oil for the best flavor and aroma, he said, while household grinders mainly chop the seeds, which doesn’t release the aromatic oil and flavor. Using the traditional method was labor-intensive and time-consuming, as the volume of crushed poppy seed needed for the bakery kept increasing.

Hall owned Iowa Manufacturing Co., which had made rock crushers for road building equipment since 1923. His engineers and design shop came up with a miniature “crusher,” not for crushing rocks for road building, Don said, but for crushing poppy seed.

A handle turns the adjustable rollers, with poppy seed fed in the top of the device and the finished product directed into a container.

Don noted that a metal label with the Iowa Manufacturing Co. name on it had fallen into the machinery when the couple spotted the poppy seed crusher during the auction preview, but he found it and was able to clean and restore the label, along with the rest of the device.

John and Sue Rocarek bought Sykora Bakery in 2001, and had planned to sell the business last year to Craig McCormick, who temporarily reopened the bakery in September 2023, after it closed in late July, but the Rocareks decided to sell the building, rather than lease it out.

Developer Kory Nanke purchased the building in December 2023. An online auction of bread pans, baking sheets, mixing bowls and more was held in February and the building has been available for lease since then.

After nearly 50 bids on the “counter top coffee bean grinder” Don and Sheila had the top bid and took the poppy seed crusher home for Don to restore. It was the only item they bid on in the auction.

“It has significance,” Don said. “This is one of a kind.”

The bakery had been a local gathering spot for generations, they noted, with one of the high points under their ownership taking place in 1995.

Czech President Václav Havel, Slovak President Michal Kováč, and President Bill Clinton were in Czech Village to dedicate the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library in October of that year when Clinton stopped into Sykora Bakery.

Sheila remembered Clinton ordered a cherry kolache, and bit into it as a White House photographer caught the moment and gave them a copy of the photo.

“I think he ended up eating two or three of them right at the counter,” she said, and asked for two more to take home for his wife, Hillary. Clinton tried to pay for the kolaches with a $100 bill, but Sheila refused to take any money for them.

The two still have the original copy of the photo and were saddened to learn of the bakery’s closing.

“A bakery is such a heart of the community,” Sheila said. “It’s a sad tradition to lose.”

In an effort to keep some of that tradition alive, they are making the poppy seed crusher available for any group that would like to borrow it to use for festivals or other events. (Leave a message below if you are interested.)

“It was just sitting there unused for years,” Sheila said, adding she hopes that will change. “We’re just thankful they never got rid of it.”

More: See photos from the reprise of the presidential visit to Czech Village