Where did you go for a kolache between 2019 and this past May? For seven years the honest answer in West depended on which way you were already driving. Downtown had Gerik's on West Oak. The interstate had the big Exit 353 stops. The small brick building at 113 E. Oak St., where Village Bakery had been baking since 1952, sat dark.
That changed on Saturday, May 23, 2026, when Village Bakery reopened under new ownership. Most coverage treated it as a nostalgia story, and it is one. It also shifts the town's bakery map. Oak Street has two Czech bakery counters again, a few blocks apart, and a morning kolache can start downtown instead of at the highway.
Seven years without the 1952 counter
Village Bakery opened in 1952 using recipes from Honey Montgomery, the grandmother of longtime owner Mimi Montgomery Irwin. Over the decades it became one of the best-known Czech bakeries in Texas, famous for fruit kolaches, sausage-filled klobasniky, and a slightly sweet dough. KWBU reported that it was a regular stop for I-35 travelers and a fixture of daily life in West.
The bakery closed in 2019 after Irwin died. At the reopening, customer Shannon Bowling told KWBU about the week before Irwin's death, when she went around the Friday group and "kissed every one of us on the face." Gayle Gardner told the station she remembered going to Friday morning coffee groups at the bakery with her granddaughter. Those stories describe how the bakery worked before it closed. Whether a Friday group meets there now is something the reopening coverage doesn't say.
The new owners are Shelly and Darrell Miller, who have lived in West for about 25 years. They already owned The Village Shoppe next door, which they bought in 2018. Shelly Miller told KWBU she held off for about a year after the bakery was listed "just to make sure locals, people with Czech heritage, would have the opportunity to buy it."
A recipe you have to feel
Owning the recipes turned out to be the easy part. "The recipe is not easy," Miller told KWBU. "So we actually spent over a year just trying to get it going." She described the instructions as "one of those old Czech recipes where you just put a little of this and a little of that." Manager Brittney Ready added, "And you got to feel it."
The recipe came back in three stages:
- Months of trial and error with the original dough recipe, according to Miller.
- A local baker steps in. Miller brought in Dusty Atmore, a Czech baker from West, who she said got the dough right on his first batch.
- A hometown taste test. Longtime Czech residents sampled the pastries while they were being baked at the American Legion. Ready said one veteran told her it brought back "just like the 1950s taste, if not better."
That order matters for the claim at the center of this post. The bakery that reopened on East Oak was rebuilt by people in West and tested by people in West before it opened to anyone else.
Ready told KWTX the bakery's dough is "light, fluffy" and "a little bit sweet." The stated goal is to bring back the original klobasnik recipe Mimi Montgomery made. The case includes kolaches, klobasnik, buchta, Moravian spice cookies, and cinnamon rolls, with pecan rolls also among the pastries KWBU photographed on opening day. Coffee is the new piece. Ready also owns Ready Brew, and she added it to the menu, calling a kolache or klobasnik paired with "a handcrafted coffee" "an act of love."
Two counters on Oak Street again
Before May, Gerik's Ole Czech Bakery at 511 W. Oak St. was holding down downtown's share of kolaches on its own. It is far from a fallback. Gerik's is listed as Best Bakery in the Waco Tribune-Herald's Heart of Texas Readers' Choice 2026. With Village Bakery back at 113 E. Oak, there are two well-known Czech bakeries on the same street.
The other half of the map sits at Exit 353 on the interstate. Here is how the four counters line up:
Counter | Where it sits | What sources confirm |
|---|---|---|
Village Bakery | 113 E. Oak St., downtown | Reopened May 23, 2026; kolaches, klobasnik, buchta, Moravian spice cookies, cinnamon rolls, Ready Brew coffee |
Gerik's Ole Czech Bakery | 511 W. Oak St., downtown | Best Bakery, Heart of Texas Readers' Choice 2026 |
Czech Stop & Little Czech Bakery | I-35, Exit 353 | Fresh-baked kolaches, per its website |
Slovacek's | 214 Melodie Dr., I-35, Exit 353 | Bakery and meat market; store hours 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, per its website |
Czech Stop and Slovacek's are built for the interstate, and their sites show it. Slovacek's lists separate café hours of 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and says its fuel pumps take cards 24/7. Those long hours fit a commute, a road trip, or a late pickup after a game in Waco.
The two Oak Street bakeries fit a different trip, one that starts from inside town. Since May, you can get a kolache in West without ever pulling onto the frontage road.
Timing a run to East Oak
Opening weekend showed how much pent-up demand there was. By 7:30 a.m. on May 23, dozens of people were waiting outside the building. The bakery served more than 100 customers that first day and sold out of almost all its pastries every day of the first weekend. Before the doors opened, Ready said, posts about the reopening had drawn "150-plus comments" and "over 100,000 views."
One customer had held out longer than anyone. Mercedez Concepcion told KWBU her family moved to West shortly after the bakery closed, and she deliberately skipped kolaches everywhere else while she waited. "I've kept it for the Village Bakery," she said.
On hours, here's what we can confirm and what we can't. In May, KWBU published the bakery's summer schedule:
- Monday through Thursday, 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.
- Friday and Saturday, 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- Sunday, 8 a.m. to noon
We couldn't find a published fall schedule, and other online listings disagree with that one. Call or check the bakery's own channels before you plan a Sunday stop. Even under the summer schedule, the bakery closed in the early afternoon, and the opening weekend sold out. Both point to going in the morning.
A fall Saturday that starts on Oak
This time of year, a downtown kolache stop pairs naturally with the season's biggest local outing. Western Belle Farm's 2026 Pumpkin Festival runs September 26 through November 8 at 7929 Heritage Parkway in West. It is open on weekends, and on Fridays during October. The farm lists more than 30 activities and live music, and this year adds a new Corn Barn.
The order is simple. Stop on East Oak or West Oak first, since a bakery case is fullest early in the day and the farm runs later. Then drive out to Heritage Parkway with a box on the passenger seat. If someone still wants klobasniky on the way home, the Exit 353 stops stay open well into the evening.
Westfest wrapped up its 50th year at the West Fair and Rodeo Grounds over Labor Day weekend, and holiday light schedules haven't been posted yet. That puts the next few weekends at the Pumpkin Festival. Between now and November 8, there are Saturdays left for a kolache on Oak Street followed by an afternoon at Western Belle Farm.
The WestLand Realty Group office is downtown, so we see the Oak Street bakeries every morning. If you're thinking about a home or acreage within easy reach of East and West Oak, or just want to swap favorite pastries, come by and say hello. Contact Our WestLand Experts.
