BUSINESS

Rugalicious

W

hen Roz Schwartz
was thumbing
through a cook-
book and came
across a recipe for
rugalach a few years ago, she
tried it.
To her dismay, Mrs.
Schwartz, who loved baking
for her family, didn't like the
final product.
"It had no pizazz," Mrs.
Schwartz recalls.
So she experimented with
the ingredients just a few
times until she stumbled
onto a prized secret recipe
that has become a successful
business venture for Mrs.
Schwartz, 47, once a
housewife.
With financial assistance
from her husband, Mrs.
Schwartz opened Rozie's
Ruggies in a small storefront
on Orchard Lake Road in
West Bloomfield last March.
She makes 4,000 of the
small, sweet, hand-shaped
treats covered in cinnamon
each day.
"The soap operas weren't
enough for me. I wanted to
do something," says Mrs.
Schwartz, mother of three
children. "People want good
homemade food, but they
don't have the time to do it. I
thought this (rugalach)
would be something diff-
erent and would catch on."
She started off small.
While waiting in line one
day for a table at The Stage
in West Bloomfield, Mrs.
Schwartz started talking
about rugalach with the
owner, Jack Goldberg. If
they were good, he told her,
he'd buy some. And he did.
For the next 21/2 years,
Mrs. Schwartz worked out of
her double oven in her kit-
chen baking 400 to 500
rugalach a day for The
Stage, her only customer.
For a while that was
enough.
"But my husband, Robert,
decided I've either got to
grow or stagnate," Mrs.
Schwartz says.
At first, she wasn't sure
she wanted to expand.
"My husband and my kids
really pushed me into this,"
she says. "They are very
supportive. Otherwise I
couldn't have done this."
Before she opened the
shop, Mrs. Schwartz thought
making rugalach at the

Roz Schwartz shows off her cinnamon rugalach.

store wouldn't be much diff-
erent than making them in
her kitchen. She was wrong.
She envisioned she'd be
done baking and be home by
2 p.m. After all, the store
ovens were larger than her
own and she had hired one
employee.
"I haven't been home since
the day I opened the door,"
Mrs. Schwartz says. "This
has become my entire life."
She's at the store from 8
a.m. to 7 p.m., six days a
week. After employees leave
at 5, she makes the rugalach
dough. It's a secret she
doesn't want to share.
Mrs. Schwartz also had
trouble in one area she never

•
Roz Schwartz
has turned
a recipe
for rugalach
into sweet
success.

1.• ■ •=1
SUSAN GRANT

Staff Writer

expected would be a prob-
lem: learning how to operate
the oven. She had been cook-
ing all her life. But this was
a convection oven, and it
worked differently than her
electric stove.
Eventually, she got the
hang of it.
The ruggies come in six
varieties: cinnamon, cin-
namon and raisin,
raspberry, chocolate chip,
apricot and poppy seed. She
also makes a cookie called a
scone which comes in three
flavors — cinnamon raisin,
honey nut cinnamon and
raspberry chocolate chip.
She has more than 100
regular customers, including

Tam O'Shanter Country
Club and Shopping Center
Market. Her dark blue
Cadillac has become the
store's delivery truck. Even
with seven employees, she
delivers most of the orders
herself.
"The people are wonderful.
They come from every walk
of life," she says. "We've
never done any advertising.
We get customers by word of
mouth."
Or sometimes it is curiosi-
ty about the store's name
which draws customers in.
A woman on her way to
work walks into "Rozie's
Ruggies," attracted by the
odd name and the spicy
aroma of cinnamon which
fills the store.
Curious to know what a
ruggie is, the customer asks
for a sample. Mrs. Schwartz
gives the woman a freshly
made cinnamon rugulach
and carefully watches her
face as the customer lifts the
treat to her mouth and takes
a tentative bite.
"I love to see the look on
someone's face as they take
that first bite," Mrs.
Schwartz says. "It's an ego
trip."
To make sure each
rugalach has the taste she
and her customers have
come to expect, Mrs.
Schwartz spends much of her
time in the kitchen. She
carefully watches as her
newest employee removes
the three trays of cinnamon
rugalach out of the oven and
onto a cooling rack.
In the background, the
other employees, wearing
blue and white smocks, form
an assembly line, rolling out
dough, sprinkling it with
cinnamon and shaping it in
a crescent. The treats are
put into the oven. Twelve
minutes later, they're done.
Mrs. Schwartz is there to
watch every step of the cook-
ing process.
"It has to be done my
way," she says. "I'm very
picky. I won't settle for se-
cond best. I wouldn't do it.
This is the way I am with
everything. My family calls
me 'the Warden. "
Mrs. Schwartz, is surprised
at her success.
"I still can't believe I put it
together. It's wonderful," she
says. "I'm enjoying it." LI

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS 53