Smales Pretzel Bakery is currently owned by fifth-generation pretzel-twister Emma Smales and her husband Joe.

The bakery began when German-born Rudie Schaaf opened Gem City Pretzel on Warren Street in 1906, not long after he arrived in Dayton as a boy in 1885.

In 1926, his daughter, Emma Smales (the first), moved the bakery to it’s current location at 210 Xenia Ave and renamed it Smales Pretzel Bakery.