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Internet turns local bakery into a national name
By Kalea Hall
BOARDMAN
A Barbie-pink sign is the first to allure you.
Then, you open the door to Butter Maid Bakery and breathe in the buttery, sugary air.
But what will really pique your interest is the story behind this 61-year-old bakery that wants to put Youngstown on the map with its kolachi rolls.
“We have evolved over the years,” said Jeff Naumoff, bakery owner. “We have always used real ingredients. We make everything from scratch with no artificial ingredients or preservatives.”
The internet has taken the bakery from local to national and even international – the bakery ships overseas to the military.
In just two years, the Naumoffs and their staff have gone from baking 80 rolls of kolachi a day to 800 rolls a day thanks to sales on their website: buttermaidbakery.com.
“It’s a holiday staple,” Naumoff said of the kolachi. “We like to say that we deliver sweet memories. It’s a labor-intensive item that very few make anymore.”
On any given day, the staff is busy behind the counter making mostly kolachi for 14 hours. In the past two months, the bakery had to increase its staff from 15 to 30 to have enough hands mixing, baking and packaging up the orders.
“We thought we were ready for this Christmas’ demand,” Naumoff said. “We never could have imagined the growth we’ve experienced.”
The Boardman Plaza bakery opened in 1955 as one of the plaza’s first tenants. The late Nicholas Naumoff Sr., Jeff’s grandfather, started the bakery. Nicholas Naumoff worked at the Steelton Bakery in Youngstown that his father, Dimitri, started in the early 1900s. He sold his shares of that bakery and then opened Butter Maid.
“We delivered bread back then, which was crucial during the depression,” Jeff Naumoff said. “We have always made kolachi. We have made our chocolate chip cookie over all the years. A lot of the other products have come and gone.”
Nicholas Sr. died in the early 1960s from heart disease, but his son, Nicholas Jr., and wife, Mary, kept the business alive. Jeff’s father, Jim, was just a little boy when Nicholas Sr. died. Later on, he helped his brother and mother keep the business going. His early jobs of scrubbing the floors and washing the pans taught him the value of hard work. Today, Jim Naumoff is the dough and filling mixer.
“We learn a lot every year,” Jeff said. “I like the challenge of heading into growth and maintaining the family business. Butter Maid Bakery has changed since 1955. You always have to change. If you try to run a business the way you did five years ago, you aren’t going to be successful.”
The bakery made a big change when shopping malls came to town in the 1980s.
Being in Southern Park Mall got the Butter Maid name out there even more. Then in 2006, Jeff, an information-technology student at Youngstown State University, launched the Butter Maid website. That’s when the shop started selling its product nationally.
“In 2014, we had three mall locations, and we made the decision to close those and open back up in the plaza so we were better able to serve our local customers and accommodate our online growth,” Naumoff said. “Closing the mall locations enabled us to really focus on growing, advertising and increasing production to meet demand.”
In addition to the 13 varieties of kolachi the bakery typically has, cookies are another prime product, but the cookie baking had to be scaled back this holiday season to focus on the high demand for kolachi.
“Our goal is to focus on what we do well: making kolachi and trying to be the very best at it,” Naumoff said.
Butter Maid will be closed for two weeks after the Christmas holiday to have a break from all the baking. The bakery will reopen at 10 a.m. Jan. 9.