• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team

Kunzle Cakes

Hi The Owl, Welcome to the forum, there are a number of threads about Kunzle on the forum, if you enter Kunzle in the white search box (top right hand corner of page), there should be enough information there to keep you busy for quite a while.

Colin
 
Kunzle Cakes ... a bright star in a drab world. That shiny Chocolate Icing, the smell in the Shop on Sutton Parade, the slab chocolate on the counter, the pretty cakes behind glass.... as a 5 year old in the 50's this was heaven.
 
I still dream about Kunzle cakes. Not sure where we got them from but they were a real luxury and treat. Should we start a campaign to bring them back or would they be too rich for my tastes now?
 
Bringing back Kunzle cakes was talked about a few years ago however, it was determined that they would be too expensive to make as they require
a lot of manpower i.e money. There were campaigns in 2005 via blogs and Sarah Kennedy on radio to bring back the Showboat cake but failed for the above reason. Now we only have our memories and photos to look at. I loved them too. https://www.google.com/search?q=Bri...1Lqf7iwLUp4CoAw&ved=0CC0QsAQ&biw=1360&bih=614
 
Can't remember the restaurants, but I may have gone there as a toddler. I do remember the moist multi coloured sponge cake which had ?kirsch? in it ... that was a special treat. Normally it was ricepaper men, (we weren't that rich!)
 
This is a photo posted by Phil on BHF in 2010 of Kunzle's in Union Street?
CityUnionStreet1.jpg
Must have been a delicious wedding cake to have had. Found a bit more about
Christian Kunzle on this web site where it mentions his restaurants. https://www.thefreelibrary.com/How+Kunzle's+made+the+world+sweeter.-a0258585782 I particularly remember the shop at Five Ways. I am not sure if it was a restaurant as well as a bakery/cake shop. Phil mentions in the same thread that there was a shop at 2 Temple Street which was mentioned in Kelly's Directory
 
Hi Owl: As you say some of the Kunzle's businesses were restaurants. Here is some information on how they transported the goods used in both
the restaurants and their baking facilities. They also had a line of chocolates one of them being Kunzle's Art Dessert. I remember the splendid Easter
decorated windows at their Five Ways shop which featured many sizes of chocolate Easter Eggs including a huge beautifully decorated one which they donated to a children's orphange.
https://www.historyworld.co.uk/advert.php?id=1491&offset=25&sort=0&l1=Food&l2=Confectionery

[url]https://archive.commercialmotor.com/article/16th-september-1949/36/k-unz-e-counsels
[/URL]
 
I've spoken to my 85 year old father. He confirms that on my birthday in the 50s I'd get a 'showboat' cake. I'd forgotten about these. I remember now taking ages to lick out the cream inside and then eat the lovely chocolate 'basket' ....

Simple pleasures maybe, but if only I had a time machine!
 
Hi Owl: Kunzle's definitely had real sit in and dine restaurants. From the link that I quoted above about the transportation of their goods
this passage tells about the restaurants run by Kunzle's. They had their own piggery in Bartley Green also for meat.

"In addition to the perishable produce distributed in the Midland area, the five cafes in Birmingham and the four outside cafes are supplied from headquarters with all other types of consumable produce, including meat, poultry and vegetables. Delivery is divided between 20 runs, each with a weekly average of about 450 miles and destinations as far afield as Leicester, Stratfordon-Avon, Hereford, Nottingham, Worcester, Coventry, Shrewsbury, Malvern and Leamington. Deliveries vary between two and four a week, according to the type of distribution and the number of calls made.

The first cafe to be opened outside Birmingham was at Leicester, which has played a very important part in the history of Kunzle's road transport development, as it was the destination of No 1 run. That was in 1919, when operating costs made it imperative to find customers on the route taken, to justify the use of road vehicles. The rapid expansion of business which followed left no doubt that deliveries by road offered almost limitless facilities for extending distribution without undue complication. To-day, No. 1 run is still prefixed "The Leicester," despite the inclusion of Marston Green, Nuneaton. Atherstone, Hinckley,"
 
I had a summer holiday job at the Kunzle factory in Garretts Green when I was 16. Hot, tiring work taking trolleys of cakes from the ovens to the packing department, as I remember. My chief memory of their products is Showboats.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top