For the past 65 years, Three Brothers Bakery has sold a multitude of European baked goods, such as rye bread, challah, Kaiser rolls and danishes, as well as many classic American treats like cupcakes, cakes, cookies and pies. Robert "Bobby" Jucker, son of one of the original three brothers, Sigmund Jucker, now owns and operates Three Brothers Bakery, along with his wife, Janice, and his Aunt Estelle, wife of Sol Jucker, Sigmund's twin brother.
Bobby grew up at the bakery on Braeswood where he would join his father and uncles in the kitchen to learn how to make various breads by hand.
"The first thing I learned was twisting egg rolls, and those are not Chinese egg rolls," Bobby says. "And then I learned how to make bagels by hand. And then once you know how to do that, it's like you're stuck there; you're doing everything now because stuff is getting thrown at you. So you learn how to make French rolls, and you learn how to do all the different breads and learn how to do rye bread and everything else. So, that's kind of how I learned. You just kind of get pushed into it and before you know it..."
His father and uncles would tease him when he came into the kitchen to practice rolling dough. Bobby says one of his uncles would slap him with a piece of dough and say, "That's not how you do it! You do it like this," and would proceed to teach him the proper method. One of his uncles loved to work in the kitchen making bread; it was therapeutic for him.
"You're with your bread and there's nobody else to bother you," Bobby says. "He hated coming out here in the front; he hated it, but he loved to be back there making his bread, watching it grow, getting the beautiful color, making the gorgeous bagels, everything like that... I learned a lot of that from them and it's something that you get to see what your hands have done in a very short period of time. A lot of people don't get to see that; it may be months away."
Bobby graduated from college with a degree in petroleum land management, but quickly realized that the bakery was where he was meant to be as it was the place he grew up. It was comfortable to him, and still is today. In 1998, he took over the business with his wife and aunt. A majority of the baked goods sold at Three Brothers Bakery are original recipes from his father and uncles, including the egg bread, the rye bread and the corn rye bread. However, to accommodate more customers' needs and reach a larger clientele, Bobby began adding more sweets and treats to the lineup, including specialty cakes, dip decks (dipped and decorated cookies), seasonal items, cake parfaits and apple turnovers.
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