Swiss Pastry Shop in Fort Worth cuts menu, makes room for more Black Forest cake
Black Forest cake has eaten the Swiss Pastry Shop.
Fort Worth’s favorite cake is so popular that the bakery is closing its dining room, adding ovens and freezers for more of the Swedish-style Black Forest dacquoise that has ruled dessert tables for 60 years.
First in private clubs and since 1971 in a restaurant and deli, it has made late founder Hans Müller and son Hans Peter Müller famous for a light, gluten-free sliver of sugar and chocolate that dominates birthdays and holidays for old and young alike.
The last few years, Hans Peter Müller added burgers and brisket sandwiches to draw more business for the deli and bakery shop at 3936 W. Vickery Blvd.
All the attention wound up making Black Forest cakes so popular that he doesn’t have to serve breakfasts or grill burgers anymore.
“I’m happier just managing a bakery,” he said this week.
Dining room help is hard to find everywhere. Food costs are going up.
With holidays nearing, the restaurant was taking up space needed for the bakery.
“We are reaching capacity during the holidays,” he said.
Swiss Pastry sells about 300 Black Forest cakes ($27-up) a week, 600 during the holidays.
That’s an average of one cake every 10 minutes year-round. During holidays, it’s one cake every 5 minutes.
So, please forgive Müller for not selling corned beef sandwiches or cheesesteak subs anymore.
His father came to Fort Worth from Zell, Switzerland, in the 1960s to join the kitchen at Ridglea Country Club, where a generation of Swiss and German chefs and bakers were already known for the almond-and-meringue Swedish version of Black Forest cake, completely different from the cherries-and-brandy German style.
Müller moved to the now-gone Green Oaks Inn luxury motor hotel at 6901 West Freeway, then opened his own bakery, deli and breakfast cafe.
“He opened the shop just like he would in Switzerland, with lunches and sandwiches,” Müller said.
A cousin is a baker in a similar cafe outside Lucerne. The Swiss shops serve sandwiches, but they’re primarily bakeries.
Müller worked in recent years to draw younger patrons, hosting Cane Rosso’s truck before the pizzeria opened a Fort Worth location. He later offered German dinners and added burgers, brisket and custom sausages.
But all those new customers and their young families also fell in love with Black Forest cakes.
“It’s been all the social media and expanded attention driving the popularity,” Müller said. “As more and more people learned about us, they tried the cake.”
Swiss Pastry will continue to make and sell chicken salad, egg salad and quiches on weekends, and it may add back a few pre-made grab-and-go sandwiches later, he said.
For customers who miss the corned beef or pastrami, Müller suggests Carshon’s Deli, another old-time Fort Worth favorite at 3133 Cleburne Road.
Swiss Pastry is taking orders for more then 20 flavors of pies and cakes during what is expected to be a busy holiday season, exacerbated by the remodeling at a crosstown competitor, the Paris Coffee Shop.
The pies (mostly $17) include apple, cherry, peach, strawberry-rhubarb and apple streusel; chocolate, lemon, banana and coconut cream; chocolate, lemon and coconut meringue; pumpkin, pecan, buttermilk and lemon chess.
Swiss Pastry’s cakes include German chocolate and an elegant chocolate-mousse cake, the Metropolitan.
The bakery opens at 7 a.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, serving pastries and coffee drinks, and closes at 5 p.m. It’s closed Sundays and Mondays; 817-732-5661, facebook.com/swisspastryshop.
This story was originally published October 13, 2021 at 5:45 AM.
