Day Trips

The Village Bakery of West started Texans' love affair with the kolache. Before 1952, you could only get those delightful little fruit-filled pastry pillows from someone's mother's kitchen or at a Czech wedding.

The little bakery on the main drag through the town of West has been owned and operated by the same family since Wendel and Georgia Montgomery brought her mother's Old World pastry recipes to an appreciative New World.

The friendly ladies behind the glass cases filled with baked goods will be happy to retell the story of how Wendel invented the klobasniki, a small sausage wrapped in kolache dough. Mimi Montgomery Irwin explains how her father, a pharmacist, was trying to make a kolache with chopped sausage meat when he hit on the idea of encasing the whole sausage instead of having it open-faced like a kolache. The results became a doughnut-shop staple. Mimi says it is not technically a kolache nor a pig in a blanket – "It's just a klobasniki."

The Village Bakery is east of I-35 in the historic district of West at 113 E. Oak St. The bakery claims to be "the first all-Czech bakery in Texas," and undoubtedly contributed to the town being crowned the Kolache Capital of Texas by the state Legislature. The doors are open Monday through Friday from 6:30am to 5:30pm, and Saturday from 6:30am to 5pm. To place an order, call 254/826-5151.

1,097th in a series. Collect them all. Day Trips, Vol, 2, a book of "Day Trips," is available for $8.95, plus $3.05 for shipping, handling, and tax. Mail to: Day Trips, PO Box 33284, South Austin, TX 78704.