Combine and Conquer : Need Some Bowling Trophies Made While You’re Waiting for Your Vacuum to Be Fixed? We Know Just the Place.

Let’s say that you and your steady have stopped at the bakery one Sunday morning, and something about the way your loved one eats a cream puff suddenly makes you realize this is the person you want to marry. If you were at La Cuarta bakery downtown, you could pay for the engagement ring along with your cinnamon roll.

La Cuarta is just one example of dual businesses that have sprung up in Southern California. In an era of mall-consciousness, the only way a small business proprietor can compete is to specialize. And some of the cleverest have learned to specialize twice--by running completely unrelated businesses out of the same location.

Binary businesses are nothing new, nor are they always unusual combinations: Barbers and dentists were once one and the same, and there’s nothing strange about a lunch counter in the rear of a department store.

The idea is also not exclusive to Los Angeles. The franchised Duds ‘n’ Suds--a combination self-service laundry and beer bar--is cleaning up all over the Midwest. And nothing can beat Portland, Oregon’s late, lamented butcher shop and religious bookstore--Better Beef and Bible.

But Greater Los Angeles has quite a respectable array of its own, and most of them are thriving. Herewith, a few of our favorite two-in-ones. Just in case you’re invited to a formal pizza party and you haven’t got a thing to wear.

Sweets for the Sweet LA CUARTA BAKERY AND JEWELRY STORE--Eight years ago, jeweler Ramiro Hernandez rented space in a downtown bakery to display his wedding rings, diamonds, bracelets and chains. Business was so good that when the bakery eventually went up for sale, he bought it. Except for the jewelry, which takes up half the shop, La Cuarta is a classic Mexican bakery, offering homemade pastries, conchitas, picones, empanadas, bread and baroquely decorated, multilayered wedding cakes. (The bakery has since expanded to two other stores, one in Crawford’s Market in Norwalk--which also sells pizza--and another in Whittier.) And their customers do overlap, especially in the bridal department; a lot of engaged couples come in to order their wedding cake and their rings. Fish Gotta Schwinn STEVE’S PET AND BIKE--Steve Segner is no stranger to running two businesses. He used to have a Western wear and tropical fish store in Pasadena. Now he runs Steve’s Pet and Bike in the Altadena foothills. While he sells a small supply of birds, fish, hamsters, turtles and the like, this is more a pet service store (in fact, Steve’s Dog Laundry is right next door). It sells specialty dog foods (including his own Breeder’s Choice Avo-Derm Skin and Coat Conditioning Diet), aquariums, horse feed, hay and every sort of canine or feline accouterment imaginable. Since Steve’s business thrives on a family trade, he’s also a Schwinn and Peugeot dealer, figuring that where there’s a kid with a dog, there’s inevitably a kid with a bicycle. All Dressed Up, Pizza to Go OLYMPUS CLOTHING CO. AND PIZZA STAND--When Rafi Oved opened his wholesale clothing business eight years ago in a shop along an alleyway in the downtown garment district, there wasn’t much foot traffic. But as more and more stores opened up in the alley, he noticed a steady increase in bargain-hungry shoppers. He also noticed the absence of eateries to sate their appetites. Displacing a few racks of his inexpensive evening gowns, he opened a pizza stand in a corner of his building. These days, the joint is jumping. Weary from deciding whether to get the plunging purple jersey with the diamante kickpleat or the single-shoulder sequined job, you can sit down, order pizza by the slice and contemplate the decision in peace. The Vacuum of Champions MARVIN’S VACUUM AND TROPHY CENTER-- Marvin and Judy Rosenfield set up Marvin’s Vacuum and Sewing Machine Center 18 years ago in Canoga Park, in a building where they still sell and service the aforementioned. They also cut keys, sharpen scissors and perform minor miracles on broken appliances. Business has been so good that they’ve taken over three storefronts and hired son Jeff as salesman. Seven years ago daughter Jill wanted to start her own business. So Rosenfield set up an engraving machine in the corner to let his daughter try her hand. Like father, like daughter. Today Jill’s engraving shop, in which she makes and sells trophies, plaques and certificates, takes up one entire storefront. She finds the cross-pollination of clientele a natural. “Every customer of mine has a vacuum,” she says, “and once in a while one of theirs needs a trophy.” Saints Necessarily Crow EL MONTE, A SPIRITUAL CURIO SHOP AND PET STORE--Rubiela Ramirez, proprietor of El Monte, in Silver Lake, runs your basic state-of-the-heart botanica, with religious objects, candles and oils, all sorts of Catholic, Afro-Cuban, Haitian and astrological ephemera, plus handy all-in-one gift packs to bring the love or luck you desire. Ramirez reads the Tarot in Spanish and whips up custom blends of incense for whatever ails you. The refrigerated case is stocked full of flowers. However, her husband, Harold, prefers animals. So in the back of the store he sells pet supplies plus live birds and fowl: roosters, pigeons, ducks, canaries, parakeets. Do his customers buy the fowl as pets or food? “We don’t ask,” he says. For Rovers Only YOUR TRAVEL AGENT AND CONSOLIDATED PET FOODS--Robert Brahms and his wife, Virginia, started making pet food in their garage just after World War II. Their enterprise eventually grew into what is now Consolidated Pet Foods of Santa Monica, manufacturers of the prized Premium Pet Loaf. Thirteen years ago, Brahms “retired,” passing on part of the pet business to three of his sons, knocking out a wall into an adjoining storefront and setting up a travel agency. Today, as owner/proprietor of Your Travel Agent, he travels about five and a half months out of the year, with a special interest in exotic locales such as Antarctica, Eastern Europe, New Guinea and his favorite, Tibet. Did it take a lot of careful planning to engineer such a radical career change? “Not at all,” says Brahms. “I put up a sign, and I was in the travel business.”