B si ess

Professional

Risa Wolf and Mary Greenberg, both
of Oak Park, shop at Zeman's.

A refrigerated case new at Zeman's

BAKED NEW WORLD from page 85

JrN

9/15

2005

86

viewed for this article, but Zeman's
proprietor Yossi Adler couldn't contain
his unbridled enthusiasm.
A Chicago native, Adler and his
father-in-law, Jeff Abraham of Oak
Park, bought Zeman's two years ago,
around the time that Adler came to
the Detroit area and married
Abraham's daughter, Rivkie. Abraham
also is in the computer business.
Adler explained, "I had previous expe-
rience as an administrator, so I just
learned the bakery trade. I'm a real 'peo-
ple person anyway, and I'm here practi-
cally all day, talking to the bakers and
schmoozing with customers.
"I'm on the phone constantly with
synagogues, restaurants, caterers and pri-
vate clubs, and I even make a lot of the
deliveries myself
-
"The store was losing money when
we took over, but we've made a com-
plete turn-around to a profitable status.
We've cut our monthly purchases of
supplies in half, from $25,000 to

$12,000 — and no vendor walks out of
here without a Danish or a donut. We
shed other costs in many ways, but we
still have about 20 employees, including
12 bakers on various shifts, and we're
still open six days a week, from 6 a.m. to
7 p.m.''
Adler prides himself on cooking
"healthier" in an age of health-conscious
and weight-conscious customers. "We
use no preservatives and more dietetics
in our breads and cakes, and our main
cooking ingredient is canola oil," he
said. "We have fresh pie fillings and
shells, and everything is 'homemade' on
the premises. We know our customers
want healthier products today, and so we
bake that way. We now sell 2,000 to
3,000 challahs a week.
"But our biggest asset is the Zeman's
name and the reputation that goes with
it. We wouldn't change the store's name
for anything."
That reputation can be traced back to
the end of World War I, when Louis
and Leah Zeman, who were Polish
immigrants, opened the first Zeman's
Bakery on Hastings Street near down-
town Detroit. By 1946, the bakery had
moved to 12th Street in Detroit, and
Louis Zeman, by then a widower, sold
the business to one of his bakers, Ben
Bornstien.
In 1955, following Bornstein's death,
the Bornstein family sold it to Morris
Weiss, who operated the bakery for 48
years, until selling to Abraham and
Adler. The Weiss' daughter, Tena, still
works at Zeman's.
Jay Godfrey of Southfield, who has
been a Zeman's customer since 1964,
calls the bakery the "real hub" of kosher
establishments in the Jewish community.
"I'm glad to see that the new owners
stepped right into the footsteps of all of
the previous owners, and are observing
the strong kosher tradition," he said. "It's

a solid bakery with great dough and a
nice variety and selection of goods. They
always go that extra mile to please cus-
tomers."
Godfrey added that "the owners are
too modest to tell you, but if some cus-
tomers are a bit short on cash, they let
them take home the baked goods and
pay later. They also donate bread and
cakes to some nursing homes and
schools.
"It's a wonderful business in our
Jewish community, and it's still in the
Oak Park area where many of us can
walk to it."
Modern, now on Nine Mile Road in
Oak Park, was founded in 1951 by
Martin Weiss and Julius Schaumberg,
now both of West Bloomfield. After
using a few locations on Detroit's east
side, the bakery moved to Oak Park,
then was sold 10 years ago to Vladimir
Goldstein and Charles Pettway, both of
Oak Park.
"At first, many of our Jewish cus-
tomers were really surprised to come
in here and see that one of the owners
is black, and might not know much
about Jewish bakeries," said Pettway.
"But when they taste our breads and
cakes, they realize they're the great,
traditional kosher baked goods.
"We use all kosher ingredients and
no preservatives. I've been baking a
long time, and Williamsburg gave me
a great background; I really haven't
missed much."
Pettway and Goldstein have no
plans to expand Modern, to sell dairy
products or lunch foods. "We're con-
tent to stick to the old-style Jewish
bakery business," said Pettway.
Bonnie Fishman moved further
north, opening her "kitchen" in
March, after being "buried on
Northwestern Highway," she says. She
feels Northwestern has become more

of a "commuter road than a shopping
road," and has lost several businesses
recently due to two years of construc-
tion work and other factors.
Fishman studied anthropology at
the University of Michigan, attended
the famed Cordon Bleu Cooking
School in London, then worked for
the Win Schuler restaurant chain and
the Money Tree restaurant in down-
town Detroit before buying her own
place. The new store, decorated by
former Oak Parker Debbi Weisberg of
Arizona, has multicolored walls, hand-
painted tiles, decorative antiques, a
wine selection and 14 employees.
"We make all of our baked goods
from scratch," Fishman pointed out.
"That's a dying art. Our poppyseed
cake is the most popular. We cater
everything from Shabbat dinners to
graduation parties — and we get four
times the amount of traffic in here
than we did at the old place."
Fishman also holds cooking classes
in the store one morning a week and
even held a bridal show — with the
groom doing most of the cooking.
The Atkins diet, which forbids
bread, caused panic in the bakery
business when it became popular
among weight-conscious people sever-
al years ago. But many bread eaters are
returning to the fold and "our bread
business is coming back," reported
Donna Smielewsky of Livonia, who
owns Diamond Bake Shop on
Orchard Lake Road in West
Bloomfield with several partners.
"I think the over-the-counter bakeries
are still preferred by people because they
like to check things out in the glass case
and decide what looks best and fresh,"
Smielewsky said. "Everything is fresh
and kosher style here.
Diamond has 10 employees, depend-
ing on business conditions.
Esther Leibowitz of Huntington
Woods and her father, Benny
Moskovitz of Southfield, have owned
Star Bakeries for 35 years. The stores
formerly sold dairy products, but that
was discontinued because of lack of
demand, "and we're being careful not
to resume that or make any changes,"
explained Leibowitz, who enjoys the
"personal contact of bakery customers.
She added: "I feel that when people
come to a Jewish bakery, they just care
about bread, rolls and cakes and noth-
ing else. All of our baked goods have
kosher style ingredients." •
Like the other bakery owners,
Leibowitz tries not to worry about the
diet crowd.
"After all," she muses, "it's the
Jewish tradition for our people to
indulge themselves in desserts once in
a while." ❑

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