Hough Bakery – One of the Greatest Bakeries in US History
One of the most beloved pieces of Cleveland’s history dates back to the start of the 1900s. A man by the name of Lionel A. Pile moved to Cleveland in 1902, and the following year founded Hough Home Bakery. The original location was opened on May 27, 1903 at 8708 Hough Ave. with only four employees. The bakery quickly became a Northeast Ohio favorite, and word spread praising the high quality of food and baked goods offered at the bakery.
Pile and his few employees managed the Hough Ave. location for the first two decades in business. Through the 1920s and 1930s the business would see expansion into the suburbs, and Pile brought his four sons, Arthur, Lawrence, Kenneth, and Robert into the family business. Now a growing family business, they established branch stores in East Cleveland and Cleveland Heights.
By 1941 business had grown enough for the need for faster production and a larger facility to accommodate it. In May of that year the family acquired the former Star Bakery plant at 1519 Lakeview Road; the exact location which sits abandoned today. In 1945, the family incorporated the firm as Hough Bakery Co. Seven years later in 1952, the business name was changed to Hough Bakeries.
During the 1930s, Hough was just stepping into the catering business, at first mostly with wedding cakes and canapes. By 1952 however, the company was ready to take on much larger gatherings, providing more types of foods now that they had the facility to accommodate for such big orders. In 1956, they established a subsidiary called Hough Caterers, Inc.
Soon after, the company started to diversify even further by getting into the production and distribution of frozen and prepared foods. In 1955, Hough Foods, Inc. was created, and by the 1960s they had begun to operate cafeterias at many major plants.
By 1973, after seventy years in business, the company had seen huge growth. Hough was now reaching annual sales of $12 million, and the company employed approximately 1,000 people; surely some impressive growth from what started as a small local bakery. The 1980s rolled around, and by this time Hough was operating 28 separate branch stores in the Greater Cleveland area. In addition to those, there were also 14 supermarket units, 6 outlets inside May Co. stores, and 3 surplus-thrift outlets.
Throughout the 1980s, into the early 1990s, other companies had begun undercutting Hough’s prices. Unfortunately, Hough fell behind in modernizing their operations, and ultimately were unable to meet the price ranges offered by their competitors. Between 1980 and 1990, the company only continued downhill, losing more money every year until the Pile family sold it off to Amerifoods. Over the next two years, Pile had tried to obtain financing for a leveraged buyout from the parent company. Unfortunately, he was unable to obtain the financing, and as money ran out, Hough abruptly, and without any notice, closed all 32 stores and the headquarters on Lakeview Road on August 8, 1992.
The company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, and soon after all of its operations were liquidated. That same year, the I-X Center purchased the catering business, and the company name and recipes were bought by Kraft General Foods.
Today, calendars from the year they closed still remain on the walls, and coupons from the 1980s and 1990s lie scattered across the floor. Employee paychecks that were supposed to go out remain in the same place they were nearly 30 years ago. Hough’s signature blue and white cake boxes remain flat, scattered among stairwells, though now dirty, dusty and damaged.
Product sheets listing pastries and their prices sit covered in dirt and grime. White cinnamon buns, maple cinnamon buns, cherry danish twists, lemon coconut cake, apricot coffee cake and date nut mini muffins are just some of the products loved by many at Hough Bakeries.
Over almost 90 years in operation, Hough Bakeries had grown to be the largest multiple-unit bakery in Ohio, and one of the ten largest in the entire country.
Thankfully, in 2019, a baker that still remembers many of the recipes stepped in to bring Hough back to life as Archie’s Hough Bakery. Archie Garner was working as head baker in the company’s catering department when they shut down in 1992. He remembers the “secret” Hough recipes, among many others, and is dedicated to bringing them back to the public. The older generation can experience nostalgia for the bakery they once loved, and those who were unable to experience it before can have a chance to experience it now. Archie’s Hough Bakery incorporates not only many classic recipes, but original bakery equipment, a gallery of historic photos, authentic counters and display cases.
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