Best bakery: For Akron’s Sweet Mary’s, baking always comes first, politics second

When Mary Hospodarsky was about 10 years old, she said, she figured out she could use coupons to buy Klondike bars, her father’s favorites, for $1 apiece. If she sold them for $2 each, she said, she would make a profit — and still charge less than the neighborhood ice cream purveyor.

“I was figuring things out pretty early, like profit margins,” said the owner of Sweet Mary’s Bakery, the top vote getter in Signal Akron’s Best of the City bakery category and a repeat winner from 2025. “I like the running of a business.”

She also grew up baking. Hospodarsky was home- schooled, and was taught that if she wanted something, she had to make it from scratch. She convinced her dad that baking was science, she said, and could be part of her education. Those baked goods were often sold outside the house.

“Everyone had a lemonade stand,” Hospodarsky quipped. “I needed to differentiate.”

Now, she runs the 11-year-old Sweet Mary’s in 1,500 square feet of space in downtown Akron. It has just four chairs on a low, orange counter facing the window, and a pair of dessert cases filled with colorful macarons, cheesecakes, croissants, scones, cookies and other baked goods.

Hospodarsky is as well known for her flavors as her politics, which often come across in sometimes foul-mouthed or pointedly partisan jokes written in icing on sugar cookies. “Nobody likes JD Vance” is a favorite of hers, as is “The president is cognitively impaired.”

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“It’s just true,” she said. 

Earlier this year, the right-wing account Libs of TikTok found her and her cookies. Hospodarsky said she was harassed by phone for about a day, but it wasn’t the first time she’s been in the crosshairs and suspects it won’t be the last.

Before Sweet Mary’s, while Barack Obama was running for president, Hospodarsky would bake cookies and bring them to the Democratic headquarters, she said. She quit her job at Signet Jewelers in 2012 and opened Sweet Mary’s at 76 E. Mill St. in December of 2015. 

She didn’t plan on involving politics in her business, she said, but after Donald Trump was elected president, “I couldn’t not say something,” she said.

And she wants to support businesses that support her values, she said, so she thought that might be the case for others. But the politics are secondary to the food and drinks themselves.

“First and foremost, we’re a bakery,” Hospodarsky said. “Baking always comes first.”

Downtown Akron needed a place for Sunday coffee

From-scratch baking has been a family priority since a favorite family recipe was lost, Hospodarsky said — her mother’s mother made an apple date bar from a box, but when the mix was discontinued and her grandmother died, there was no way to recreate the recipe. Her mother has tried, she said, but has never gotten it quite right. And Hospodarsky said her mother wanted to make sure she could recreate her favorite flavors.

Hospodarsky sees baking as a creative outlet and said she likes experimenting with seasonal flavors and figuring out how to make items vegan or gluten-free. She’s currently working on a hot dog and baked bean handpie, or a beanie-weenie.

Aside from the sugar cookies, fruit danishes are big sellers. She’s personally a fan of more savory items like the elote croissant or the egg salad sandwich.

There wasn’t much on her block when Sweet Mary’s moved in, Hospodarsky said. But she thought if downtown Akron wanted to take itself seriously, it needed to have a place where people could get coffee on a weekend morning. Sunday is the bakery’s busiest day, she said, while Fridays tend to be slower.

Sweet Mary’s is open Wednesday to Sunday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

During weekend events, the cookies tend to be more family-friendly, while the swear words are more prominent on weekdays. Hospodarsky said since she also manages social media, she tends to think about what people are talking about online as she thinks about phrasing for cookies. 

A recent one referenced some choice words Sen. Bernie Moreno had for Anthony Fauci, the chief medical adviser to the president during the coronavirus pandemic, in a congressional hearing.

“I’m just trying to pick the things that resonate with people,” said Hospodarsky, a West Akron native.

She said the bakery has continued to get busier.

“I’m really lucky to have such a supportive customer base,” she said. “It’s amazing I get to write these things on cookies.”

2nd place:

The West Side Bakery (2024 1st-place winner, 2025 2nd-place winner)

2303 W. Market St.
330-836-4101
Website: https://www.thewestsidebakery.com/

3rd place:

Kabylia Baguette

526 S. Main St.
330-810-0125
On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kabyliabaguette/?hl=en