Cleveland, America mourns Hungarian pastry expert

The founder of the American Farkas Pastry Shop passed away to the greatest dismay of the community, as Szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu reports.

Attila Farkas, 83, was one of the most beloved figures in Cleveland, Ohio, as football coach and the founder of a local pastry shop. Attila was born in Budapest but moved to the States during the communist-socialist regime in Hungary. At first, the family – already in the catering business in Hungary – opened a pastry shop offering mainly local sweets to the public, but they were not successful.

The true success of the family came when they opened a shop specialising on Hungarian pastries.

It quickly spread that Hungarians love to eat good food and the catering unit became so successful that the family became an integral part of the community. Attila, a “master of Hungarian pastry”, as Cleveland.com reports, was loved by many people, especially Mike Harrison, who currently runs the Farkas Pastry Shop.

He says that Farkas became like a father to him as he taught him all his recipes and worked with him in the shop, which eventually became the highlight of his week.

“So many people loved him,” Harrison said. “Old ladies would come in with hearts in their eyes. Attila could be abrasive, but he just melted into a sweetheart when a customer was there. He was so much larger than life … He made people feel good about themselves. What more can you say about a person?” – told Harrison in an interview to Cleveland.com.

Locals were so distressed by the death of the native Hungarian pastry-master that they planned an informal public memorial. The bakery’s Facebook page received more than 100 entries of condolence in a day following his death.