Savage’s Bakery
Family has been at the heart of Savage’s Bakery for the past 75 years.
Margaret Scott remembers coming up to the bakery on holidays as a child to help box cakes, tray cookies and put butterflake rolls on a pan. Her older sisters, Kitty and Elizabeth, helped with customers when they got old enough. Aunts, uncles and cousins have worked for the business since her father, Van, purchased it in 1978.
The bakery was founded on Highland Avenue by William Savage in 1939 and moved to its current location on 18th Street in the 1950s. Scott’s grandmother was there for its grand opening.
Over the decades, the shop’s interior and recipes for signature items like smiley face cookies, meltaways and scratch-made birthday cakes have remained the same. Kids still get to pick out a treat from bakery cases at their eye level if they behave while their moms shop in Jack N Jill next door.
Ben Cook has been the head baker at Savage’s since 1978, and baker Louise Cooley just retired after 30 years there. Sales clerks, most of whom work there while they are in college, are considered family as well and often receive gifts on holidays from regular customers.
One woman comes in every day for a smiley face cookie and Diet Coke. Sales clerks start moving when they see her walking toward the entrance.
“It’s fun for me when I come in and already see them putting a box together,” said Scott, who now works with her dad to run the business.
When she first started at the bakery after moving home from Jackson Hole, Wyo., three years ago, Scott ate a yellow cupcake with buttercream icing every day for breakfast. She’s since cut back and started eating more lace cookies.
“Our icings are out of this world,” she said, noting they can purchased by the pound for home bakers. “I am particularly fond of buttercream and cream cheese.”
In fact, Savage’s is so confident in their buttercream and cream cheese that they recommend it on their wedding cakes over fondant because they want it to taste good.
One item of many hidden from the bakery case (because it must be refrigerated) is roulage, a flourless chocolate cake rolled up with a sweet cream filling. The confection can also be found at Piggly Wiggly and served at Birmingham Country Club and The Club.
There are certainly iced cookies in the case, but the bakery will also customize orders for them. Recently, they even shipped monogrammed cookies to Texas for a wedding, one of many orders that have traveled across the country and even to Europe.
Still, Scott is interested in bringing some new sparkles to the tradition of Savage’s. She recently added a fresh coat of paint to the interior and added menu items like granola. Next up is a new deli menu with side items such as pesto pasta made with Alabama ingredients, and gluten-free items are in the forecast as well.