Week #38, Heitzman Bakery and Nord’s Bakery, Louisville, KY Part 1

(This is part one of Week #38’s donut adventure. Next time I’ll share the eating of the donuts…)

Still in Louisville and armed with another donut tip from a local, John and I headed to Heitzman Bakery. When we pulled into the parking lot, we noticed a sign that said, “STILL OPEN.” Did that mean “Still open after all these years” or what?

After a short wait for the girl behind the counter to serve one guy, we got our chance to ask. Seems the attached Walgreens is remodeling and has ousted the locally owned Hallmark store and the bakery. Is that really progress? The bakery had received a month-long extension and was able to stay open while their new location was being readied.

A large selection of donuts lined one of the bakery cases. There was nothing really unusual in the offerings, just a nice selection of standards and a large tray of donut holes. The bakery cases formed an “L” and contained a vast array of pies, cakes, muffins, kuchen and cookies. Everything looked like it had been there for years, except the baked goods which smelled fresh and delicious.

The located of Heitzman Bakery we visited was located at 804 Eastern Parkway in Louisville, Kentucky. Please confirm the address before visiting, as a move was pending.

With a small bag of donuts in hand, our adventure should have been wrapping up. We asked the girl behind the counter for directions to the nearest post office, as we had a small care package to send to Afghanistan. She gave us directions but we were a bit stymied by one way streets and an inability to see the giant USPS sign. While wandering around, we spotted another bakery and felt inclined to stop in, you know, to verify the directions to the post office.

Nord’s bakery is in a big brick building on a corner in an older neighborhood and has a big OPEN sign in the window. It looked inviting, even from the outside. The inside was absolutely charming. An antique bread slicer and a pie safe were on display. A small seating area was off to the side and I really wished I had time for a coffee and a pastry. Alas, we still needed to find that post office and get to work, but not before buying more donuts…

The girl behind the counter at Nord’s was very outgoing and made a couple of suggestions to us. We made our selections and paid, all the while chatting with her about the history of the bakery and the neighborhood. The bakery has been there for over 70 years and changed owners in the last few years but has kept the original recipes. When she asked what brought us in, I told her I blog about donuts and was from out of town. That brought about a whole new list of recommendations and we left with twice as many donuts as we initially purchased, including the maple bacon bar which we didn’t even notice. How could we miss a bacon topped donut?!? (If you are keeping count, that’s two donut shops with bacon this year, still hoping to visit Voodoo for the original.) We also snagged the reported favorite of President Bill Clinton, a beautiful cream frosted number.

More donuts than we could possibly consume in hand, we headed off to find that elusive post office. It was in a very non-descript building, looking nothing like the post offices of the Midwest. We mailed our package and headed off to work to share our many donuts with friends. I’ll fill you in on that soon!

Nord’s Bakery is located at 2118 S. Preston Street in Louisville, Kentucky.