The End of an Era : Erika’s Bake Shop, a Westlake Plaza Fixture, Will Close; Space Will Go to Blockbuster Video

For six years, Dieterich Heinzelmann had been grooming his son Dustin to take over the family bakery when he retired.

The two men have risen at 2 a.m. six days a week and headed to Erika’s Bake Shop in the Westlake Plaza Shopping Center, firing up the ovens to create exquisite desserts such as eclairs, meringue shells and truffle layer cakes.

But they will be sleeping in after July 2, when the 25-year-old bakery, which the family has owned for 22 years, closes to make way for a Blockbuster Video store.

“A lot of small businesses like ours are going to vanish,” said the elder Heinzelmann, whose lease is not being renewed by TCW Realty Fund, the Encino company that owns the Westlake property.

“I don’t want to retire yet, but I can’t afford to relocate. Now my son won’t be able to continue the tradition,” said Heinzelmann, who immigrated to the United States in 1953 after studying confectionery and baking in Germany.

The owners have offered to find another space for the bakery and contribute $40,000 toward the move, but Heinzelmann said he needs at least $200,000 more to purchase new equipment that meets state codes.

Heinzelmann’s equipment met state codes when he took over in 1973, but he would be required to update it to meet current standards if he relocates.

And although business has been good, he is not willing to take out a loan to move.

“Community bakeries and independent stores in general are suffering,” he said.

“I have colleagues who have been operating for 30 years in the San Fernando Valley who are hurting. People buy their desserts at Costco these days.”

But Liz La Cagnina of La Cagnina & Associates, which manages the shopping area on Westlake Boulevard, said business is business.

“You just can’t turn down a large user like Blockbuster,” said La Cagnina, who acknowledged that she buys all of her birthday cakes at the bakery. “We’re sad to lose a good tenant but there isn’t much we can do.”

La Cagnina said that when Heinzelmann’s lease came up for renewal in the fall, he indicated that he might be retiring.

So the company began negotiations with Blockbuster officials, who had expressed an interest in the property, which borders Agoura Road.

Heinzelmann, 56, said he had no plans to retire at the time, but that he did talk to officials at La Cagnina & Associates about passing the business to his son.

“Maybe they took that to mean that I was retiring,” he said.

The video store will take up four retail spaces in the shopping plaza, two of which have been unoccupied for months.

Another of the spaces is occupied by agents for Delta, American and United Airlines, who are in negotiations for a location two doors down from Longs Drugs in the same center.

They do not have as much heavy equipment to relocate and hope to expand when they move.

“Still, moving is expensive these days,” said Lucy Hockey, Delta lease manager.

Meanwhile, bakery patrons of all ages and sizes are lamenting the pending closure of the tiny shop.

When 2 1/2-year-old Rebecca Wagner finished a harrowing visit to the doctor’s office Tuesday morning, she looked up at her mother Renee with big blue eyes and asked if she could have a treat from Erika’s.

The family gets its comfort food from the bakery, Renee Wagner said.

Howard Bierman of Westlake Village had just found out that the shop is closing.

“You can’t eat videos,” he said. “There must be 4,000 video stores, but only a dozen good bakeries left.”

Hairdresser France Hayes, 36, who works at the Hair Grove, a salon in the shopping center, said she was angry that Erika’s is closing.

“Where are we going to get cookies so that the kids will sit still while their mothers get a haircut?” she asked.

“It’s so sad that these type of mom-and-pop stores are losing out to the big corporate guys,” Hayes said.

“I feel for them,” said Joseph Ieraci, co-manager of the restaurant Milano’s II in Agoura, which purchases about 10 dozen desserts from the bakery each week.

“They’re an independent business just like we are,” Ieraci said.

“Now we’re going to have to train our employees to make more desserts. We’ll probably discontinue eclairs and napoleons. Those are too hard for us to make.”

Heinzelmann said the worst aspect of closing is having to let his employees go. Three of them have worked at the bakery for more than 10 years.

“And this is skilled labor,” said Heinzelmann, pulling out sheets of layer cakes, almond crescents and Cookie Monster cupcakes that his employees have made.

“It’s not the minimum-wage jobs that Blockbuster will bring,” said Heinzelmann, who pays his employees an average of $33,000 a year plus benefits.

Dustin Heinzelmann, 21, said he’ll probably go back to school to study music now that he will not be running the bakery.

“I’m disappointed,” he said as he put the finishing touches on a sheet of meringue shells that his father had started to shape. “I don’t think the [shopping center] owners realize how established this place is.”