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1928 — present · 414 West Seventh Street, Mishawaka
The boundary, printed plainly: The best-documented bakery in the two-city record is not South Bend's. West End Bakery stands at 414 West Seventh Street in Mishawaka, a separate city whose build comes later in this history; it is printed here at true size because the region's paczki record — the measure of the Polish Fat Tuesday trade that both cities share — is kept there, and because South Bend's own bakery losses are counted in its story. Nothing here absorbs it into South Bend's record.
The house and the paczki measure: West End opened in 1928, a Belgian bakery run by three generations of the Fobe family, Greg Fobe the third. It closed, then was bought in 2020 by Mike Wojtysiak and Jeff Butler, and bought again in 2025 by Matt Mammolenti and Dan Olson, as the Tribune reported in June 2025 and July 2026. Its Fat Tuesday production is the documented scale of the region's paczki trade: about 4,700 paczki in nearly a dozen flavors, with crews working sixteen-plus-hour days, as WNDU reported on February 17, 2026. A Tribune readers' poll of February 13, 2026, gave West End more than three-quarters of the votes for best desserts among thirty area spots — a poll, printed as a poll. The same Tribune coverage names the losses inside South Bend that frame this boundary entry: the Dainty Maid in 2016 and the north side's Country Bake Shop, closed in 2022.
Sources:
- South Bend Tribune (June 2025; July 2026) — the Fobe generations; the 2020 and 2025 purchases; the South Bend losses, Dainty Maid (2016) and Country Bake Shop (2022).
- WNDU (17 February 2026) — the Fat Tuesday production of about 4,700 paczki in nearly a dozen flavors; the sixteen-plus-hour days.
- South Bend Tribune (13 February 2026) — the readers' poll on area desserts, thirty spots, West End's three-quarters share.