Crestwood company baking homemade product for decades

Honey Wafer Baking Co.'s new owner still cooking up signature sweet treats

The cream-colored honey candy boils to perfection, waiting to be spread onto a golden brown wafer baking in the oven.

Meanwhile, dozens of 8-inch circular treats make their way out of their heated home, onto a conveyer belt and into the hands of a worker, who spreads a spatula full of softened honey onto the wafers and sandwiches two together.

Moments later, the honey treat gets wrapped in a bag and boxed for distribution inside a small warehouse warmed from the near 90-degree day.

This all happens in a matter of seconds -- and mainly by hand.

"They're kind of like snowflakes," Tony Lewandowski said of the company's signature product as he donned a hairnet, white apron and hat. "Everyone's a little different."

Lewandowski, 47, bought the Crestwood-based Honey Wafer Baking Co. last fall from its creators, the Anisi family, who started making the honey wafers in 1925 in Chicago's Bridgeport community, where they lived.

Boris Anisi, 75, said his father created a recipe similar to one used throughout Europe, a recipe the Lewandowski family has not changed. Anisi traces his roots to Macedonia.

In the '20s, Anisi's father started his business by pushing a cart through Bridgeport and Chicago's Back of the Yards community, selling taffy apples and wafers for a penny each.

"He had six kids to support during the Depression, so he worked very hard," said Anisi, who still acts as a consultant to Lewandowski.

Lewandowski's father, Wally, 69, remembers running after the cart as a child to snag a wafer when he visited his grandmother in the Back of the Yards.

"We liked to go to grandma's because she'd always buy it for us," Wally Lewandowski said. "It was like the ice cream man ringing the bell."

The work paid off for the Anisi clan as the baking company that continues to label packages with the Anisi name is selling wafers nationwide. Several stores in the Southland carry the product, such as Dominick's, Walt's and Sentry Foods, Lewandowski said.

Plus, the wafer -- at 90 calories and five grams of sugar per serving -- is popular among diet groups and those looking to watch their sugar, Lewandowski said.

"It's something to munch on that isn't going to ruin your diet," he said.

In April, the family-owned business at 13952 Kildare Ave. came out with a new product, a chocolate-filled wafer.

Then came a blurb about the baking company in the New York Daily News online edition. The next day, Lewandowski said he received 834 orders -- a large jump from the usual 30 orders or less a week.

This fall, they'd like to offer customers a smaller version of their popular honey wafers, maybe something the size of a coffee cup, Lewandowski said.

Until then, this family and their crew will keep on baking thousands of wafers that have put them on the map.

To order the wafers, go to www.anisihoneywafer.com or call (800) 977-9012 to find a store that carries them.

Kristen Schorsch may be reached at
kschorsch@dailysouthtown.com
or (708) 633-5992.