Grodzinski boss confirms ‘bittersweet’ decision to retire and sell shops
Jonathan Grodzinski - who ran the Edgware and Golders Green shops with his daughter Debbie - confirms he is retiring and selling the business after a 53 year long career making challas and strudels
Lee Harpin is the Jewish News's political editor
Legendary kosher baker Jonathan Grodzinski has announced he is retiring from the industry, having sold up the two remaining shops he operated in London with his daughter.
Grodzinski,73, and his daughter Debbie Paster were the fourth generation of family member sinvolved in the famous bakery, which founded in 1888 in the East End of London.
Admitting he would “miss the interaction with thousands of customers” Grodzinski confirmed he had made the “bittersweet” decision to sell the two remaining shops under his control in Edgware and Golders Green.
They have been purchased by Yossi Mozes of Yossi Bakers Edgware, who also took over the Golders Green Carmellis store in 2019, and who is expected to continue the Grodzinski brand.
“It hasn’t been just a 53-year job for me, it has been fulfilling a family destiny which I have enjoyed throughout,” Grodzinski, a great-grandson of the founder of the kosher bakery brand, told Jewish News.
“I will miss my lovely staff many of whom have worked for me for decades.I will miss the good humour, the banter and the satisfaction of a job well done.”
But he confessed: “I will not miss the pressure, the decision making, the deadlines and the night time phone calls.”
He also recalled how many of his customers were themselves the children of his own family, stretching back to his great-grandparents Judith and Harris, who ran the original Grodzinski shop in Fieldgate Street in East End.
After rapid growth of the business, kosher bakeries flourished with shops opening in Stoke Newington, Stamford Hill, Cricklewood, Willesden and Hendon to cater for the growing Jewish population.
Grodzinski eventually became the largest Jewish bakery in Europe, and each week, twenty tons of flour was transformed into bread, rolls, cakes, biscuits and patisserie, and freshly delivered twice daily to 24 branch shops around London, covering an area from Ilford in the east to Bayswater in the west, from Edgware in the north, to Soho in the centre.
They also counted Harrods, Selfridges and Marks and Spencer amongst their wholesale customers.
Each Pesach, 40,000 boxes of handmade cakes and biscuits were sold to Jewish communities throughout the UK.
But in more recent years Grodzinski has faced stiff competition, leading the closure of many of its stores.
In 1991 following a financial restructuring, baking was transferred out of the central bakery into the shops, in an attempt to fight off the competition form Israeli bakers making hot bread, chollas and beigels in front of their customer
But two family members moved to Toronto in 1997 and established Grodzinski shops in Canada.
The two Stamford Hill and Edgware bakeries were run by J Grodzinski and Daughters as part of a modernisation of the business.
In 2019 Stamford Hill was sold, but continued to trade as Grodzinski.
In the last couple of years Golders Green was re-acquired and following a massive rebuild and refit reopened as a “Grodz” shop last year.
Former schoolfriend Jerry Lewis said:”Pupils at William Ellis School in Highgate will share his memory of the delicious sticky buns he supplied the school tuck shop with everyday, which contributed to several increased waistbands in later life.”
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