Retired Professionals Have Got the Goods

By Phyllis McGuire
Special to iBerkshires
10:00AM / Thursday, June 30, 2011

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Dr. Michael Sussman and Paul Jennings have found a new avocation in preparing sweets a few times a week at Tunnel City Coffee.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — All roads lead to Tunnel City Coffee at the bottom of Spring Street, or so it seems.

People of all ages and all walks of life come from near and far to enjoy the individually crafted coffee beverages and freshly baked goods Tunnel City Coffee offers.

Proprietor Paul Lovegreen first ventured into the retail coffee business in 1992, with the opening of Cold Spring Roasters at 48 Spring St.

"I started exclusively with coffee. We didn't do any baking," said Lovegreen, a longtime coffee connoisseur. "Then, I began purchasing baked goods from a company in Vermont where pastry chef Dara Lindley worked. My mom is an accomplished amateur baker, and when she retired from teaching, she brought in sugar cookies and muffins she had baked from recipes she had invented."
 
Lovegreen hired Lindley a decade ago and she began baking delectables, such as Triple Chocolate Mousse cake, in the kitchen that had been installed in the basement of Cold Spring Roasters.

In 2004, Lovegreen moved his business to larger quarters in the new Burr & McCallum building at the end of Spring Street, and Tunnel City Coffee was born. 

"We gave the cafe that name because we roast coffee in North Adams, which is called Tunnel City, and thought it would represent the Northern Berkshires," said Lovegreen, a native of Vermont who now resides in Williamstown. 
 

Gayle Gliwski is a regular customer who loved to bake.

Tunnel City Coffee had a staff of approximately 20 when Lovegreen decided to hire an additional baker. The sign posted on the front door of the cafe read: "Part-time baker needed, retirees encouraged to apply." Lovegreen said the tradition of retirees baking for his cafe began with his mother.
 
Now three of the five bakers at Tunnel City Coffee are retirees: Gayle Gliwski, Dr. Michael Sussman and Paul Jennings, once the superintendent of Williamstown Elementary School.
 
Gliwski, who worked as a legal secretary, and her husband are regular customers at the cafe. "One day I just asked Paul if I could have a job. I like to cook and bake," she said recently, sitting with her colleagues around a butcher-block counter in the cafe's kitchen.
 
Sussman and Jennings together went into the cafe to ask about the job. "I already had been thinking it would be fun to learn to bake," said Sussman. "When we told people we were going to be bakers, they thought it was a joke, but interestingly my wife was very supportive."

Jennings said that he felt there had been a pool on how long they would last as bakers. 
            
The part-time bakers work six to seven hours, two to three days a week. They take turns coming in at 4 a.m. for the first shift.
  
Lindley, a professional baker for 20 years, trained the aspiring bakers. "Dara has a system for everything," said Jennings. "She even takes the chocolate out of the bowl a certain way. She would tell us, 'You can do it however you want, but this is the way I do it.'"
 
Gliwski chimed in saying, "Dara's way is always the best way. It's neater, easier and takes less time."
 
Speaking of their first days in the kitchen of the cafe, Sussman said, "It was a little stressful until we developed a routine and then the stress washed away."
 
All the retirees praised Lindley for making them feel comfortable and being forgiving when they made mistakes.

"I had a 22-pound mistake," Sussman said. "I made 22 pounds of banana bread without [baking] soda." He realized something was wrong when the bread did not rise. "I thought maybe we could salvage it ... I got rid of the evidence. I stuffed it into boxes and threw them in the garbage."

Jenning's mistake was not omitting an ingredient but making too large a quantity. "I made six dozen ginger cookies instead of two dozen," he explained. "Unfortunately, ginger cookies don't keep well and you can't freeze them so most of what I made was never sold. " 
 
When asked if they taste what they baked to be sure it meets with the high standards Lovegreen and Lindley set, Sussman said, "You are always trying to make it better. Always self-critiquing."
 
Jennings only nibbles on what he has produced. "Or else I would gain a lot of weight!" he said. "You have to be very disciplined, especially when it's one of your favorites."

One of his favorites is apple scones. Gliwski has to resist temptation when raspberry and peach muffins come out of the oven, she said. Sussman has a weakness for rugula. "Dora makes it, and if it's around, it's very hard for me not to eat," he said, as he spoke the showcase in the cafe contained rugula, blueberry cream cake, apricot stars, lemon cake with white icing dotted with orange rosettes and other scrumptious baked goods.
 

The retirees' creations can be found behind glass as you walk into the cafe.

All the retirees spoke very highly of Lindley. "She wants to help us," said Gliwski.

Lindley creates a chart showing the bakers' work schedule and what they are expected to produce in a given day. She affixes to the refrigerator a list of what items are in it: yogurt for fruit parfait, meat for quiche, etc., and she labels all the boxed and bottled ingredients on the exposed shelves in the kitchen.
 
One morning when Jennings was making lemon squares, he reached for a container on a shelf and Lindley, who was several feet away with her back to him called out, "Not that one, it's orange, the one next to it is lemon." Jennings said, "She's amazing. She has eyes on the sides on the back of her head."
 
Recently the bakers and Lovegreen discussed the possibility of using healthier recipes. "We questioned whether we would be able to sell [that type of product]," Sussman said. "Changing the oil would change the flavor."
 
Jennings and Sussman agreed that moderation is a good way to go health-wise."If you want a chocolate chip cookie have one, but not more," suggested Jennings.