WESTLAKE : Bakery Closes Despite Pleas of Customers

A thin dusting of pastry flour still hides in the corners of what was Erika’s Bake Shop.

But the mixers and freezers are gone. So are the display cases and the strudels, cookies and cakes they once held.

And, today, owner Dieterich Heinzelmann will be gone, too, from the Westlake store he owned for 22 years.

On Wednesday afternoon, a salvage crew packed the last freezer parts onto their truck. The store closed Sunday, after its lease was not renewed by shopping center owners who wanted the space for a Blockbuster Video store.

“I just couldn’t possibly see financially relocating,” Heinzelmann said. A move to a new site would have required the bakery to spend at least $200,000 on new equipment meeting tough, new health and environmental standards, he said.

More than 2,000 customers signed petitions to the shopping center management, asking them to let the bake shop remain.

As he watched the final fixtures removed from his empty store, Heinzelmann said he was sad to put longtime employees out of work.

He said the store had been affected not only by Blockbuster, but by the downturn in the California economy. Corporations that used to buy dozens of Danish pastries each morning cut back on their orders, he said.

On Sunday, though, people lined up to make their final purchases, said Heinzelmann, who said he plans to take two or three months off before making plans for the future.

“We sold everything we had. We had nothing left,” he said.