This classic Kansas City bakery is closing after 30 years: ‘We were the youngest’

Mary Clark got to her Independence Avenue bakery at 10 p.m. Tuesday and cooked through the night — as she has for three decades.

“If we started at 2 or 3 in the morning we would never be done,” she said late Wednesday morning.

Clark and longtime friend Loretta Peeler opened Boulevard Bakery & Pastries at 2815 Independence Avenue in 1991. Now it will close Aug. 14 as they retire.

Clark went to school with Peeler. Peeler’s family owned Bud’s Bakery in Kansas and they offered to teach Clark how to bake. When the women went out on their own, Clark was the baker, Peeler the decorator.

“She’s the artistic one,” Clark said.

During the holidays they would put in 16 to 18 hour days. Now they are ready for a break.

They will miss their loyal customers throughout the metro, some who are like family, Clark said. They also worry that bakeries like Boulevard are now not as common as when they were starting out.

The women said they take pride in baking the old-fashioned way, from scratch with the “freshest and finest ingredients.”

The bakery serves items such as doughnuts, cakes, eclairs, cream puffs, lemon bars, chocolate cream pie and fruit pies, and a variety of cookies including date pinwheels, chocolate chip, Italian fig, pecan snowflake, oatmeal raisin, glazed biscotti, peanut butter and lemon sugar.

“It’s sad. When we started we were the youngest. Now, we are the oldest,” Clark said.