PROVO — Hruska’s Kolaches opened the doors of its Provo location on April 1, 2014. The small bakery on Center Street was, and is, the fulfillment of Ross Hruska’s dream of owning a restaurant. With the help of his siblings Cory and Devin and with a family recipe that he believed could carry a business, Ross Hruska introduced Provo to a breakfast food that has made his business the No. 1 restaurant in Provo, according to 165 reviews on Yelp.
According to The New York Times, “The kolache (pronounced ko-LAH-chee) entered the American repertory in the mid-1800s, soon after immigrants from Central Europe settled in the hills and prairies of central and south-central Texas. The region was once home to more than 200 Czech-dominant communities.”
In Texas, the traditional kolache, which consisted of dough, fruit, cream cheese or cottage cheese and poppy seeds, began to be infused with a staple in Texas food culture: meat.
One of Ross Hruska’s Czech progenitors, Theodore Hruska, was one of these immigrants who settled in Texas in the early 1900s, and kolaches have always been a culinary tradition for the Hruska family.
Ross Hruska grew up in Sugar Land, Texas, watching Food Network, and as a teenager, he became fascinated with food, according to his brother Cory. While attending Brigham Young University, where he double majored in Spanish and finance, Ross had the idea to open a kolache restaurant. He contacted his grandmother and requested his great-grandmother’s kolache dough recipe. He tweaked it a bit and felt confident that the kolache had the ability to sustain a restaurant in Provo, but he also knew he couldn’t do it by himself.
He recruited the help of his brother, Cory Hruska, and sister, Devin Hruska, who were also students at BYU, studying communications and business, respectively.
“We helped him really get this going,” Cory Hruska said. “It’s his idea, so the credit goes to Ross, but we’ve all built this together from nothing.”
Hruska’s opens its doors Monday-Saturday at 6:30 a.m. and closes when the kolaches, made from scratch daily, are sold out, which is typically around noon. The restaurant's daily sales have grown nearly 800 percent in just two years. Cory Hruska believes the quality of the product keeps people coming back.
“In the end, the quality thing will stick around, and people will return for that,” Cory Hruska said. “My personal philosophy, what I’ve learned, is you get a quality product, quality service and the consistency, and you will do well.”
Rebecca Peterson, a Provo resident, first came to Hruska’s with her husband, Jacob, who served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. She had never tried a kolache, but she fell in love with the pastries, specifically those with jam and cream cheese. Her husband found the kolaches at Hruska’s to be larger and sweeter than the kolaches he had on his mission, but his wife says they recognize that this seems to be the “typical American adaptation of a European food.”
Since their first visit, the Petersons have watched as word of the restaurant has spread.
“I think they’ve definitely gotten more popular, which stinks because they sell out faster," Peterson said. "But to be honest, I really think the quality has stayed the same. They still have that quaint, small-bakery feel, and the food is always good.”
The three Hruska siblings have learned to translate their familial relationships into the workplace and have each taken on specific roles within the business.
They have also learned the importance of acknowledging the hand of God in the success of their restaurant. Cory Hruska had just returned from his mission for the LDS Church when they began looking for potential locations for their restaurant. He suggested that they fast before searching. They fasted and found a place but felt unsettled about it. They were eager to get started and explored the option of the available location but soon began to see why they didn’t have a good feeling initially. They put a halt on negotiations with that location. The same night, a vacancy appeared on KSL for the location on Center Street. Ross Hruska called and immediately got it.
Cory Hruska said they have since found that combining their work ethic, which they attribute to their father, with faith makes for a winning combination.
“When you go and do something like this, you have to work hard,” he said. “You put your faith in God to push you along, but you really do prosper according to how hard you’ve worked. You don’t prosper because God makes you prosper. You work hard, and then God helps a little bit, as long as you acknowledge that he’s there helping you.”
The siblings opened the doors of a new Sugar House location Thursday morning. Cory Hruska continues to thank God their success.
“We’re very successful right now, almost too successful to keep up, and in my prayers, … I acknowledge that God pushes us along," he said.
Email: mjones@deseretdigital.com