<\/p>\n
My dad<\/span><\/strong> admired bankers. In my dad\u2019s pantheon of great Cleveland families, the number one clan was the Bilskys, who started out making bagels, then went into medicine (#1 son), bowling alleys (#2 son, Mayflower Lanes, Cedar Center), and ultimately started a bank (#3 son, Metropolitan Savings). My grandmother used to say \u201cThe Bilskys make big bagels out of little bagels.\u201d<\/p>\n Scott Bilsky — who is a young man — called my klezmer band to book us for a temple event. He said 12 Bilskys would be at the event. Dr. Harold Bilsky (#1 son)? Nope. He died in 2007. Harold had grown up with my dad on Kinsman. Leo (#2 son) wouldn\u2019t be there either. He had died in 1998. I asked Scott. \u201cWhat about the banker [#3 son]?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s my grandfather Marvin, He\u2019ll be there.\u201d Marvin was 90.\u00a0 (This was in 2011.) At the temple gig, I cornered Marvin during the band’s break to schmooze. He told me, \u201cEverything I ever did began with a B — baker, banker and builder.\u201d I already knew that. \u201cAnd brewer,” he said. That, I didn\u2019t know.<\/strong><\/p>\n Bilsky, a brewski?<\/p>\n Marvin said, \u201cMy father bought Cleveland-Sandusky Brewing in 1955. There were very few Jews involved in the brewing business. In the 1960s, Israel came to us for brewing tips and equipment.\u201d Bilsky bottled Gold Bond beer and Olde Timers Ale. Marvin said there had only been five Cleveland breweries in the 1950s: Bilsky, Carlings from Canada (\u201cvery nice people\u201d); Standard Brewing, Erin Brew (Irish); Leisy\u2019s (German); and Pilsener\u2019s P.O.C. (Czech). \u201cWe all used to meet on Mondays. I didn\u2019t have any trouble with anybody,\u201d Marvin said.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t<\/strong><\/span> know about breweries and still don\u2019t. My father rarely drank; it would have interfered with his worrying. (A Jewish joke.) I knew something about Carlings from Cleveland Indians\u2019 broadcasts; that was about it. I drink a Miller Lite once in a while now. I\u2019m mostly a seltzer guy. Bilsky\u2019s brewery was a blip in the Bilsky family history. Move on to the main subject, coconut bars . . .<\/p>\n The preeminent Bilsky business was Bilsky\u2019s Bakery, which started on Kinsman Road and moved to Cedar Center in 1948. Who invented the Cleveland coconut bar? I should have asked Marvin Bilsky. I didn\u2019t. I called Marvin the next day and said, \u201cMarvin, this is Bert Stratton from Yiddishe Cup, the klezmer band. We played for your family.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThanks for the concert last night. You did as well as you could,\u201d he said. \u201cNo, seriously, we enjoyed it. And to answer your question, I\u2019ve always said my father invented the coconut bar, but \u2014 and I have to tell you this \u2014 I went to Sydney, Australia, and I went down into the subway there. They have a small subway system. They had coconut bars down there. They didn\u2019t call them coconut bars. Where did they get them? Maybe from England. Australia used to be part of England.\u201d [Australians call coconut bars lamingtons.]<\/p>\n \u201cMarvin, I have a friend, Seth, his grandfather was a Kritzer of Kritzer Bakery on Kinsman. Seth says his grandfather invented the coconut bar.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was my father!\u201d Marvin said, groaning. \u201cWho knows.\u201d<\/p>\n I dialed<\/strong><\/span> my cousin George, whose father had owned Heights Baking on Coventry. George said his father didn\u2019t \u00a0invent the coconut bar, but hey, maybe. Scott Raab, a former Clevelander, wrote in Esquire<\/em> (July 2002): \u201cAsk for coconut bars in any Jewish bakery from New Jersey to Los Angeles and you\u2019ll get some version of this: \u2018So, you\u2019re from Cleveland \u2026We don\u2019t have \u2019em.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Nowadays Seth buys his coconut bars at Davis Bakery. I get mine at Zagara\u2019s grocery store. I\u00a0once asked the Zagara’s clerk where the grocery store got their bars, but the clerk didn’t know. I even looked at the shipping box, which was unmarked.<\/p>\n I invented the coconut bar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My dad admired bankers. In my dad\u2019s pantheon of great Cleveland families, the number one clan was the Bilskys, who started out making bagels, then went into medicine (#1 son), bowling alleys (#2 son, Mayflower Lanes, Cedar Center), and ultimately started a bank (#3 son, Metropolitan Savings). My grandmother used to say \u201cThe Bilskys make […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cleveland-full"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27243"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27287,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27243\/revisions\/27287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}