THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 6, 1995 TAG: 9509020216
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY MARY REID BARROW, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 188 lines
THE AROMA IS THE same. The melt-in-your mouth white almond petit fours, miniature eclairs and cream puffs are the same. Even the name is the same.
It's just the place that's different.
The oldest bakery in town got a new lease on life this summer.
Plaza Bakery, a mainstay of Princess Anne Plaza Shopping Center for more than 30 years and one of its last remaining original shops, moved in August to shiny new quarters at Regency Hilltop on Laskin Road.
The move was a result of the many changes at the Plaza shopping center - the huge HQ home center and a Harris Teeter grocery store, which is under construction where the bakery and several other stores once stood.
But nothing, nothing at all, has changed as far as Plaza Bakery is concerned.
The same people are there. And so are the cakes decorated with any theme or design you can conjure up. And you can still stop by early in the morning to pick up breakfast pastries for the office.
Dave Freeman and son Michael, who lives in Suffolk, and their long standing staff are still keeping the same old-fashioned baker's hours, too, that go something like: in at 4 a.m. and out by 9 p.m. That's if they're lucky.
``I've come in on Friday morning and I never went home until Saturday night,'' Freeman said.
This is a schedule they keep every day of the week except Sunday. ``And being closed on Sunday doesn't mean we're not working on Sunday,'' Freeman added.
A schedule like this goes with the territory. Freeman and his 39-year-old son, who has been working for his dad since he was 14, are from another era, where mixes, once-risen doughs and other modern times-savers were not known.
``Everything here is natural, not an artificial thing in it,'' Michael Freeman said. ``We don't use any mixes and our doughs are made from scratch.
``There aren't many of us left that work from scratch,'' he added.
Other Plaza Bakery goodies from scratch include old-fashioned pies, cookies, brownies, doughnuts, cheese biscuits, wonderfully decorated wedding cakes and breads - from rolls to loaves - the same goodies you would expect to see on a bakery shelf a generation ago.
Plaza Bakery comes by its tradition honestly. Long-time residents will remember that Naa's Bakery in Norfolk was owned for several decades by Freeman's uncle, Marvin Harless, who is now deceased. Freeman began working for his uncle when he graduated from college in 1957. They opened the Village Pastry Shop in Aragona Village Shopping Center in 1958 and in the early '60s, the shop moved to Princess Anne Plaza Shopping Center and became Plaza Bakery.
Even some of the employees have been around long enough to become traditions at Plaza Bakery. Take 69-year-old ``Whitey'' Iannazzo. He's been tending the oven and serving as the bakery's Mr. Fix-it since 1964. Alice Coleman, who cleans up after the cooks, has been there 29 years and Alice Clark, who works in the front, 23 years.
Faye Newman, who decorates cakes, goes back to 1967, except for time off to have two children. And Bobby Foster began scrubbing floors at the bakery at age 15. Now 38, Foster is in charge of making the cakes, pies and brownies. ``He taught me everything I know,'' Foster said of Freeman.
Many of Freeman's customers are institutions, too. Vinnie Cidlevicz is one. She walked in recently with a smile of relief on her face that she had finally found Plaza Bakery's new home. She has lived in the neighborhood behind the Plaza shopping center for as long as the bakery was there.
``Boy, do I miss you at the Plaza,'' Cidlevicz said. ``I could walk it before. I'd come three times a week and if I didn't go, I sent my husband.''
Freeman chided her gently. Regency Hilltop is close to Princess Anne Plaza, he said. ``You think it's too far away, but it's only three minutes.''
On another day, Margaret McCune, another long-time customer, stopped in for a loaf of bread and a couple of bear claw pastries. Since 1963 she has relied on the bakery for not only bread and pastry, but for fancy foods like little cheese biscuits and the famous petit fours.
``We're fortunate to have him,'' McCune said, ``because so many things are sent in pre-packaged these days.
``When he came here, there wasn't anybody here who knew what you were talking about when you said `party food,' '' she went on. ``Anything you put in front of him, he could duplicate, just like a dressmaker.''
From the beginning, Freeman has always been able to duplicate a drawing or a photograph on a cake. ``Drawing'' free hand, he made a specialty out of cakes decorated to order years ago. He attributes his talent to his mother, who enrolled him in an art class as a youngster.
``My mother made me take an art class which I hated,'' he said, ``with only one other little boy and 25 little girls.''
Still, what he learned came back quickly when he graduated from college and went into the bakery business with his uncle. That was at a time when all you ever saw on cakes was ``red, white and blue roses with dark green leaves and no pastels,'' he said.
But Freeman's cakes are artistic creations. Some folks around the Beach are bound to remember a huge round cake he decorated for the city complete with all the details of the City Seal on it. Or the English setter flushing a quail from the brush. Or the huge rectangular cake divided into panels detailing the history of one old birthday boy's life. Or the cake that depicted a skier's crash into a tree.
One recent cake had an image of Miss Virginia, Amber Medlin, on it and was served at a going away party for her before she left for the Miss America Pageant.
``They want their cats, their dogs and their sisters and their brothers,'' Freeman said, laughing. ``They tell us what to do and we do it. We've done some we weren't real happy with, but we've never been stumped.''
If not birthday cakes, then surely you've seen the beautiful wedding cakes turned out by Freeman and company. The weekend's output of work really turns on the number of cakes on order. Anywhere from four or five to 25 wedding cakes, designed to each bride's specifications, and several dozen birthday cakes are produced each weekend.
``On Saturday, it's a mad house,'' Freeman said. ``We have wedding cakes going in all directions.''
Bride-to-be Jacqueline Kifus of Chesapeake drove over to Virginia Beach to order her wedding cake at Plaza Bakery. She doesn't ordinarily shop there, but when it came to her wedding cake, it was worth the drive. ``Everybody says to come to Plaza Bakery, because they're the best,'' Kifus said.
Michael Freeman is the wedding cake decorator these days. He learned by watching his dad. Much to Freeman's surprise, Michael took over when his dad went on a long vacation about a decade ago.
``I had no idea he could do it,'' Freeman said of his son.
Now the 62-year-old Freeman also has help decorating the fancy cakes from Cecelia Venninger, an eight-year Plaza Bakery veteran. Venninger, who's been known to get to work as early as 2 a.m. to prepare for a busy weekend, can copy anything you bring to her. She's the one who, working from a photograph, iced the portrait of Miss Virginia on that recent cake.
She, Freeman and Faye Newman work hand in hand from a vat that begins the day filled with 88 pounds of icing. Some days they'll go through two vats, Venninger said.
``And most of it goes through a hole the size of the head of a pin,'' Dave Freeman said.
As proof, he pointed to Venninger who was taking just a few seconds to turn out tiny roses from pink icing in a paper cone with a hole about the size of that pin. Typical of the camaraderie that exists behind the scenes at the bakery, Venninger entered into a little competition with the boss.
She expertly created a clown made of icing on the work table. In a matter of seconds Freeman made a saucy pink elephant from icing. Back came Venninger with a perfect Snoopy dog. Then Freeman created more pink elephants - reclining, rolling over and sitting up - until all the staff nearby was laughing.
It's that kind of energy and creativity that keeps folks like Mary Lou Parker, who moved from Virginia Beach to Chesapeake 3 1/2 years ago, coming back to the Beach for her family's birthday cakes. She has shopped at Plaza Bakery for 34 years and was there recently to order a cake for her husband.
``It goes back to when my daughter had a birthday,'' she reminisced. ``She wanted a blue fairy on her cake and I gave him a picture from a story book and he did it.''
And that was the start of a still another tradition, this time, a Parker family tradition of Plaza Bakery birthday cakes, a tradition that runs in many Beach families. MEMO: Plaza Bakery is next door to the Burlington Coat factory in Regency
Hilltop. The shop is open 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday
and is closed on Sunday. Call 340-3931.
ILLUSTRATION: [Cover]
SAME OLD THING
[Color Photo]
Mike Freeman opens the new bakery at Regency Hilltop before
daylight. By 7:30 a.m., fresh donuts, eclairs and coffee cake are
ready for the public.
Staff photos by MORT FRYMAN
Using dough made from scratch, Mike Freeman, 39, cuts out doughnuts
that will be deep-fried and glazed.
Dave Freeman, 62, has owned Plaza Bakery since its formation with
his uncle, Marvin Harless, as the Village Pastry Shop in Aragona
Village Shopping Center in 1958.
Alice Clark has worked the front counter at
Plaza Bakery for 23 - apparently enjoyable - years.
LEFT: Dominique ``Whitey'' Iannazzo has been tending the oven and
serving as the bakery's Mr. Fix-it since 1964.
ABOVE: Cake decorators Cecelia Venninger, left, and Faye Newman ice
several dozen birthday cakes a weekend.
RIGHT: Bobby Foster, 38, began working at the bakery at age 15. He
makes cakes, pies and brownies.
BELOW: Vats of icing become delicate roses and other detailed
creations.
Staff photos by MORT FRYMAN
Dave Freeman's cakes are artistic creations. One recent cake had an
image of Miss Virginia, Amber Medlin, on it and was served ata a
going-away party for her before she left for the Miss American
Pageant.
by CNB