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." ❑ "