Thursday, July 06, 2000
Pastry lovers lose old friend
By Chuck Martin
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Virginia Bakery owners Tom and Maureen Thie show the schnecken for which their shop is famous.
(Tony Jones photo)
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Most customers who dashed through the warm drizzle into Clifton's Virginia Bakery on Wednesday morning failed at first to see the neatly printed sign. As usual, their eyes were fixed on the glass case filled with coconut rolls, butterscotch gems, cinnamon crumb cakes and other pastries.
But when customers read or heard what the sign said — that the 73-year-old bakery is closing its retail operation in less than three weeks — they were surprised and saddened.
“I can't believe it,” said Carol Rumpler, an assistant professor of nursing at the University of Cincinnati, while standing outside, under the bakery's blue awning. “I remember coming here as a kid. The women who worked here had white hair and they wore white uniforms. They gave you cookies.”
Lee Werle turned pale when he heard the news.
“These schnecken are going to Virginia Beach with my nephew,” the College Hill resident said, while holding a box of the bakery's famous German pastries. “I don't know how many of these I send to him every year. Virginia Bakery is a landmark. Seems like everything in Cincinnati is closing, and nothing is replacing it.”
The surprising news about Virginia Bakery comes as big changes occur at two other Cincinnati food institutions. Last weekthe 78-year-old Shuller's Wigwam restaurant closed in College Hill. And Saturday, Camp Washington Chili will abandon its 60-year-old diner for a spiffy new building next door.
Closing the retail operation was an agonizing decision for owner Tom Thie, whose grandfather bought Virginia Bakery — named for a previous owner — near Clifton and Ludlow avenues in 1927. However, he admitted it was easier to close after his father, William Howard Thie, died in December.
“It breaks my heart to disappoint our loyal customers,” Mr. Thie said. But he said a severe shortage of skilled workers gave him little choice but to shut off the ovens.
“We have people asking to be paid $8 an hour who don't even know how to bake,” he said.
He will close the retail bakery July 22. He and his wife, Maureen, will reopen Virginia Bakery as a wedding and specialty cakes shop Aug. 8. For eight years, Ms. Thie has designed, baked and decorated the custom cakes. Closing the retail operation will allow the couple to focus on the more profitable cake business, he said.
“Maureen works 80 hours a week now just to help pay people,” Mr. Thie said.
The couple missed celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary last month because Ms. Thie was working at the shop, while her husband was caring for their 5-year-old daughter, Carly.
“This bakery killed my grandfather, killed my father, and it was working on killing me,” Mr. Thie said.
Getting other jobs
Mr. Thie broke the news to his employees early Wednesday. When they reopen the business as a cake shop in August, none of the 20 full- and part-time bakery employees will return. But Mr. Thie thinks they will have little problem finding work.
“Tom said he would help me find another job,” said Willie Little, who has worked at the bakery 15 years.
Virginia Gardner, who has rolled dough and cut out cookies in the hot, flour-dusted kitchen for 45 years, cried when she heard Mr. Thie's plans. Virginia Bakery is the only job she has known.
“This family has been part of my life,” Mrs. Gardner said. “But I think I'll also miss the customers. You get to know these people. You can almost fill their orders when they walk in the door.”
Although Virginia Bakery produces more than 100 varieties of breads, cakes, cookies and other pastries, customers will no doubt miss the bakery's schnecken the most. Others sell the decadently sweet and buttery German sweet loaf, spiced with cinnamon and sprinkled with raisins. But Virginia Bakery has been making it longer — and many would argue better — than other bakeries.
Generations have grown up eating the schnecken. The pastry was so popular, Virginia Bakery had an official “schnecken club” — buy a dozen and get one free. For years, the bakery has shipped thousands of schnecken to homesick Cincinnati natives around the world.
“I've been coming here for only 11 years,” said Doris Alford of Independence, who works at Adrian Durbin Florists across the street. “But my sister told me about the schnecken a long time ago. I love the schnecken.”
There might be a reprieve for schnecken fans. Mr. Thie is considering gearing his operation back up during the winter holidays, when the pastries would be sold on a limited basis.
“Those who get here first would get their schnecken,” said Mr. Thie.
But he knows his temporary “schnecken outlet” won't satisfy customers who are accustomed to stopping for a daily schnecken fix.
Tight labor market blamed
The demise of small, family-owned bakeries is a national trend, said Peter Houstle, executive vice president of the Retailer's Bakery Association in Laurel, Md. And he said Virginia Bakery shares the most common problem with other bakeries that have closed: a tight labor market.
“Fewer and fewer people have baking skills,” Mr. Houstle said. “Baking is a science. It takes a good three years to learn to bake. And fewer people are making that commitment.”
Mr. Houstle has heard of some bakeries that recruit inmates to work as they are released from prison.
Competition from supermarket bakeries also has hurt the small retail operations, he said. So many family bakeries — like Virginia Bakery — give up making doughnuts and Danish for more profitable custom cakes.
Ms. Thie is not worried about her cake business more than making up for the loss of retail sales.
“I've had to turn down wedding clients because I just don't have the time,” she said.
Her husband emphasized that he's not closing his retail operation because of a lack of customers.
“Because of our labor problems, I was concerned that we couldn't maintain the quality of our products,” Mr. Thie said. “I was afraid people might notice that. And I wanted them to remember Virginia Bakery the way it was.”
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