Whether it is time for breakfast, lunch, dinner or dessert, Penn State students have plenty of food options downtown for confections.

State College has a plethora of bakeries, coffee shops and restaurants that feature specific pastries and sweets that have become local traditions.

The grilled stickies at Ye Old College Diner, 126 W. College Ave., are a very popular item that sell throughout Pennsylvania, New York and Maryland, said Tommy Everetts, bakery manager at the Diner.

"Our grilled stickies are huge," Everetts said. "They are just good, and there is a history behind it."

Everetts said he bakes about 10,000 sets of grilled stickies every week, and though some people have approached the restaurant for the recipe, workers have never given it out.

"[Grilled stickies] have six ingredients, and there is no secret ingredient," Everetts said. "It's just good old-fashioned butter and sugar."

You can find stickies, either with or without walnuts on top, being served at any time of the morning, day or night.

"People here at the restaurant like to order slivers with ice cream for dessert," Everetts said. "They're also very popular for breakfast foods. Especially during football season, you can find stickies at every tailgate."

Grilled stickies are not the only specialty pastry found at the Diner. Everetts said the options vary depending on what he feels like making, but pies such as apple and cherry can always be found.

"My favorite is the pear almondine, which is a pear pastry with an almond crust," Everetts said. "I probably only make it three times a year, though."

Panera Bread, 148 S. Allen St., is a chain restaurant that has more than 600 stores throughout the United States. The shop in State College celebrated its sixth-year anniversary in February, General Manager Monica Selvaggi said. She said Panera Bread features many different pastries, bagels, cakes and cookies, all of which are freshly baked each night.

"My favorite is the apple pastry," Selvaggi said. "It has cinnamon and sugar with a honey glaze."

She said one of Panera's specialties is its coffee cake, which is a round danish cake with apple, cheese and cherry danishes.

"Our most popular bakery items are our cinnamon rolls and our fresh artisan pastries," Selvaggi said. "These are new pastries baked with fresh butter croissant dough. They replace danishes and things not made from hand."

Panera also features breakfast bagels at all times of the day, the most popular of which is cinnamon crunch, Selvaggi said. Every three months, Panera gets two new types of bagels, including both a new chocolate bagel and a new specially flavored bagel, she said.

"Initially, these bagels don't sell as much, but after about two months, they are just as popular," Selvaggi said. "These are our celebrations where we change the look of the restaurant and get different products. It changes the flavor to keep everything fresh."

Panera uses no preservatives or trans fats in its bakery products, Selvaggi said.

But Panera is not the only bakery downtown to feature freshly made pastries. Irving's Bagels, 110 E. College Ave., is the only place in town with authentic bagels, Jack Schoenholtz, co-owner of Irving's Bagels, said.

"We make them from scratch every day, boil them first, and then bake them," Schoenholtz said.

Like Panera Bread, the bakers at Irving's start in the late evening every night and bake throughout the night.

Irving's is a family-owned business named after the beloved uncle of the owners, Schoenholtz said.

Irving's Bagels' signature items include fresh scones and muffins. Schoenholtz said the most popular item is the cranberry orange scone. Irving's also features coffee cakes and desert cakes in chocolate and carrot flavors.

"I always like a poppyseed bagel with nothing on
it," Schoenholtz said. "My brother and I always used to take the bagels right out of the oven and eat them plain."

Some downtown shops do not bake their pastries in the store, such as Saint's Café, 123 W. Beaver Ave. Patrick Reed, employee at Saint's Café, said many of their pastries are prepared by a local baker who makes everything fresh.

"We have a variety of muffins and scones that change every day," Reed said. "Our most popular is definitely our chocolate cake, though."

Most of the breakfast items found at Saint's Café are baked fresh, while a few are shipped frozen from nearby or out-of-state.

"What I like the best are Joe's black and white cookies. They're not baked fresh, but they're good," Reed said. "There's a nice selection of what we have here besides great coffee."