Transcript of interview with Yvonne and Joni Fried by Barbara Tabach, February 17, 2016

An Interview with Joni Fried & Yvonne Fried An Oral History Conducted by Barbara Tabach Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas ©Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2014 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV - University Libraries Director: Claytee D. White Project Manager: Barbara Tabach Transcriber: Kristin Hicks Interviewers & Editors: Barbara Tab ach, Claytee D. White n The recorded interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) Grant. The Oral History Research Center enables students and staff to work together with community members to generate this selection of first- person narratives. The participants in this project thank University of Nevada Las Vegas for the support given that allowed an idea the opportunity to flourish. The transcript received minimal editing that includes the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader’s understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. In several cases photographic sources accompany the individual interviews with permission of the narrator. The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of the Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project. Cl ay tee D. White Director, Oral History Research Center University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas m Preface Yvonne Fried, M.D., and Joan “Joni” Fried are the daughters of Milton and Esther Fried, the founders of Freed’s Bakery—the standard to which all other Las Vegas bakeries are held. When the Fried family moved to Las Vegas in 1955, Joni was bom here, the fifth child, of the entrepreneurial Milton, a musician by night, and his industrious wife Esther, who guided the family business. As Esther’s 2006 obituary reads: in 1959 the couple opened “a snack bar, selling donuts and Danish, at the Panorama Market on West Charleston, while Milt played in the show band at the Sahara Hotel in the evenings.” For Yvonne and Joni, this made for a rather busy and interesting household to grow up in. Their Jewish upbringing was at Temple Beth Sholom. Photo above honors the multi-generations of the Freed’s Bakery tradition: (L-R) Joni Fried, Anthony & Sarah Fusco (Joni’s daughter) Max Jacobson Fried (Yvonne’s son) holding his son Lucas, and (far right) is his wife Emilia. IV Table of Contents Interview with Joni Fried & Yvonne Fried February 17, 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Barbara Tabach Preface.............................................................................iv Talks about Eastern European ancestral knowledge of family tree; father Milton Fried was bom in Hoboken, New Jersey (1913-1996) and mother Esther (1919-2006) was bom in Denver, Colorado. Story of how parents met while father was a touring musician; he was also a member of the Army Band stationed at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Talk about father’s music career, year ahead of Frank Sinatra in school, played on Broadway; parents ended up buying a restaurant on Route 9W in New Jersey and called it Fried’s (the spelling would evolve in Las Vegas).......................1-4 Photos offamily in 1955 and restaurants.....................................................5-6 Describe growing up with three brothers and all the children played musical instruments. Family’s move from New Jersey to Las Vegas in 1953 and then again in 1959; father could earn a steady living as a musician. Talk about starting school in 1959 at Crestwood, neighborhood, father takes job running snack bar at a market while looking for musician work. Tell how parents opened first bakery at Panorama Market, then Market Town, El Bar El, Mayfair Markets, Boulevard Market, Skaggs Alpha Beta; mention Harry Levy............................................7-11 Describe their mother Esther’s style of bookkeeping on 3x8 cards; making of Halloween cookies, gingerbread houses, father Milt going to work as musician at Sahara and coming home, which was nearby, on breaks and for family dinners; impact of operating so many outlets, including Boulevard Market, mention Muriel Stevens, sisters talk about living together in Los Angeles and coming back to work in bakery during holidays, Baja, CA, house and opened bakery there in 1971... 12-15 Opened Tropicana and Eastern location in 1981; learning to manage business during Las Vegas’s population boom and demand for product; spending holidays with friends.................16-17 Photos of Freed’s Bakery, Boulevard Market location..................................18-20 Talk about living in Pardee-Phillips developments during 1950s; Twin Lakes; going to lunch at Sands as kids; neighbors included Kim Sisters, Johnny Carson, Englebert Humperdink, among others. Story of father feeling threatened when speaking at a Musicians Union meeting during a strike Father, Milton Fried, played at Sahara for Judy Garland, Buddy Hackett, Johnny Carson, Osmond Brothers, Jackson 5, Don Rickies; opened International with Barbra Streisand, Elvis Presley. Talk about going to Hacienda and Dunes..............................................21-24 v Photo of Milton Fried, musician, 1964......................................................24 Recall when they felt the city began to feel crowded in mid-1990s; implosion of Sands hotel/casino, opening of Treasure Island and Mirage, implosion of Dunes...............25-26 Photos of Freed’s Boulevard Bakery, located at Eastern and Tropicana (1980s)..........27-28 Discussion of being Jewish in Las Vegas, a primarily Mormon town; attending Hebrew school at Temple Beth Sholom, being asked to recite Lord’s Prayer at Crestwood Elementary School, regarding B'nai B'rith Girls, brother Barry in AZA. Mention that their mother, Esther Fried, was bom in Salt Lake City UT..................................................................28 - 30 Talk about baking, what would be baked each day, where the recipes came from, Joni recalls working the bakery at El Barrell Market and Yvonne talks about becoming a physician. Both recall importance of music in the family, Milton involved in young musicians program in schools; participation in band at Helldorado Parade; talk about brothers and their musical talents: Steven, Barry and Paul Fried, all who became bar mitzvah at Beth Sholom, Cantor Kinnory...................................................................................31 - 37 Spelling of the name Fried / Freed; discussion of some of the photos shared here; Freed’s being voted number one bakery in Las Vegas; Mr. Maurer, Andre from Andre’s restaurant, Paul of Cake World.....................................................................................38-44 vi Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project UNLV University Libraries Use Agreement Name of Narrator: Name of Interviewer: We, the above named, give to the Oral History Research Center of UNLV, the recorded interview(s) initiated on ClJ l1 j(p_______along with typed transcripts as an unrestricted gift, to be used for such scholarly and educational purposes as shall be determined, and transfer to the University of Nevada Las Vegas, legal title and all literary property rights including copyright. This gift does not preclude the right of the interviewer, as a representative of UNLV, to use the recordings and related materials for scholarly pursuits. I understand that my interview will be made available to researchers and may be quoted from, published, distributed, placed on the Internet or broadcast in any medium that the Oral History Research Center and UNLV Libraries deem appropriate including future forms of electronic and digital media. There will be no compensation for any interviews. Oral History Research Center at UNLV Libraries 4505 S. Maryland Parkway, Box 457010, Las Vegas, NV 89154-7010 702.895.2222 Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project UNLV University Libraries Use Agreement Name of Narrator: Name of Interviewer: ck U^ ck i'TCK b<KcU__________________ We, the above named, give to the Oral History Research Center of UNLV, the recorded interview(s) initiated on f&h. /7, 2.0/ along with typed transcripts as an unrestricted gift, to be used for such scholarly and educational purposes as shall be determined, and transfer to the University of Nevada Las Vegas, legal title and all literary property rights including copyright. This gift does not preclude the right of the interviewer, as a representative of UNLV, to use the recordings and related materials for scholarly pursuits. I understand that my interview will be made available to researchers and may be quoted from, published, distributed, placed on the Internet or broadcast in any medium that the Oral History Research Center and UNLV Libraries deem appropriate including future forms of electronic and digital media. There will be no compensation for any interviews. Oral History Research Center at UNLV Libraries 4505 S. Maryland Parkway, Box 457010, Las Vegas, NV 89154-7010 702.895.2222 This is Barbara Tabach and today is February 17, 2016. We are sitting in my office at UNLV University Libraries. I am sitting with Yvonne and Joni. Please say your names and spell it so we have it down correctly. Joni Fried; J-O-N-I, F-R-I-E-D. Yvonne Fried, spelled Y-V, as in Victor, O-N-N-E; Fried, F-R-I-E-D. The place I usually like to start for the Jewish Heritage Project is with what you know about your family ancestry, where the roots are. What do you know about that? YVONNE: So my father's family came to the United States from Austria. His father was a resident of Austria, but not a citizen of Austria. I have his naturalization certificate and the naturalization certificate has the choice of citizen or subject, I think it is. He was a subject of Austria as opposed to being a citizen of Austria. I don't know what significance that had; I can only imagine, don't have the same property rights, et cetera. So his father came from Austria and I'm not sure where his mother's family came from, but I can find that out. My mother's family came from Russia and Poland. So her father was from Russia and her mother came from Poland. Her father immigrated to this country in the early 1900s; her mother's family, also the early 1900s. My father was bom in 1913 in Hoboken, New Jersey, maybe, maybe not. JONI: He was born in Hoboken. YVONNE: My mother was bom in Denver, Colorado. Her mother, my mother's mother had tuberculosis. So when they got to this country, at some point they moved to Denver to be near the Jewish Hospital for pulmonary diseases. So that's where my mom was born. So that's how that migration started. 1 YVONNE: That's how that migration started, I believe. My mother's father worked for a company called Farrah Pants. He was a salesman and he drove around in the different western states selling pants for Farrah, which was based in Texas. His first language was Yiddish, his second language was Hebrew, his third language was Russian and his fourth language, then, was English. Oh, wow. And he was a traveling salesman. YVONNE: And he was a traveling salesman, yes. How did your parents meet? YVONNE: My father loved music and he started playing musical instruments when he was young. I can't tell you how old, but he was probably twelve or thirteen. He went to the Catskills in the summers and played and he eventually made music his life vocation. He was touring— and I can never remember the guy's name. He was a musician who toured the United States. JONI: Kenny Lopez? YVONNE: Maybe. I'll have to get you the correct information. But he was touring as part of this musical band and they were in Salt Lake City. He was playing there and somebody set him up with my mom. Then eventually, I think, she followed him to New York City and then he proposed to her and they got married. Then everything changed. But let's see. In the meantime, he went into the Army Band. So after he did this musical touring of the United States, then he was in the Army Band at Fort Dix, New Jersey. We have actual tapes...I have CDs. So we have the original reel-to-reel tapes that I took to a fellow in Florida who transferred them on to CDs, which I have in my laptop. So I have pictures of the Army Band in Fort Lee, as well as music that was played by this Army Band. Oh, how wonderful is that? 2 YVONNE: Yes, very sweet. What instrument did he play? YVONNE: Well, he played the sax, tenor sax, bassoon, clarinet, oboe, flute, English horn, but what he loved was the bassoon. At that time when he toured with this music band, he would teach as well. So he put advertisements in the paper and he would teach. So was music part of your family heritage? Were there other musicians? YVONNE: Oh, yes. Big time, big time, yes. What do you know about that? My father's primary work was music. So they lived in New Jersey; that's when they first got married. After he got out of the Army, he played on Broadway. Did he play with Frank Sinatra or he knew Frank Sinatra? JONI: Well, he was a year ahead of Frank Sinatra in school and then he played with Frank Sinatra. YVONNE: Right. But that was when Frank Sinatra was playing in New Jersey. So did they go to school together? JONI: The same high school. YVONNE: Yes, they both were a part of Hoboken. So after the war was over, then they ended up buying a restaurant in New Jersey, Englewood, New Jersey, thinking that that's what they would like to do. This is your parents you're talking about? YVONNE: This is my parents, right. So they opened a restaurant. In the back of the restaurant they had a big dance floor. So they had a jukebox and a dance floor. In the front of the restaurant—it was on Route 9W and it was called Fried's. High school students would come on 3 Friday nights and buses would be coming up and down going to upper state New York. JONI: Right across the George Washington Bridge. YVONNE: Yes. So they had big buses come. So as a family we grew up in that environment. I have three older brothers—Steven, Barry and Paul. Barry is passed away. But Steven, Barry and Paul. So Steven played bassoon and Barry played oboe and Paul played flute. My father would play clarinet and then he would invite a French horn player to come. At our house on weekends they would have quintets. So we heard a lot of classical music when we were growing up. Did you girls play instruments? YVONNE: Well, I was five and Joni was like, I don't know, eighteen months or so. This was very early. I started on the flute when I was five, but I was never a musician as my brothers were. So I was bom in 1950 and we moved from New Jersey to Las Vegas in 1953. The thing about the East Coast, playing on Broadway, was that it was not a solid job. If the show played for two weeks and then folded, you no longer had a music job. So coming out west to play in Las Vegas meant if you got a job that you had good steady income. So he played at the Sands, from '53 to '55. In 1955, Joni was born. My father's mother became ill and we moved back to Englewood, New Jersey. So the restaurant that they had that they started was basically run by one of my father's cousins while we were here in Las Vegas from '53 to '55. We went back in '55 and we worked in the restaurant again. 4 Fried family in 1955. (L-R) Esther, pregnant with Joni, Steven, Barry, Milton, Paul and Yvonne in foreground. Then my father's mother passed away in possibly 1959 or '58. But then in 1959, we moved back to Las Vegas. 5 In addition to Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey location, they were proprietors of the Red Barn in Bergen County, New Jersey. 6 So my brothers all still played musical instruments in that summer of 1959. They were off in summer school music camp and then we did a different kind of trip. We drove from Englewood, New Jersey, through the south. Got a new car in Texas. We did this with my father's sister and my mother's first cousin and Joni and me and that was it. They were, what, five of us? Two, three, four, five, six. Six of us, two kids and four adults. We drove all the way to Mexico City. Oh, my goodness. YVONNE: We had a lot of fun. Then we drove back through California, up from Mexico City to California and then over to Las Vegas. How long was that trip? YVONNE: It was the whole summer, basically. It was probably at least eight weeks. When I think about that I think, how did they get money put together you could take off for eight weeks and just go traveling? How did they think about that? Anyway, they did. We didn't know the difference. We didn't know people didn't do that or did do that. JONI: It was funny because I guess the first day we were back after dinner I said, "Okay, let's go." My mom said I didn't know we were home. YVONNE: So that was our return to Las Vegas was in the summer of 1959. So in *59, you’re how old, Joni? JONI: Oh, four. YVONNE: I started third grade at Crestwood. I went third and fourth grade to Crestwood Elementary and then fifth grade at Paradise Elementary and then sixth grade at Robert E. Lake. So it involved one housing move from the Pardee-Phillips development. Let me just mention something that was great about Pardee-Phillips development. When we were here from '53 to 7 '55, they had this great pool, a great community swimming pool. It was a great place. I have many pictures of that. What was the name of that neighborhood, do you remember? Or what streets? JONI: Chapman Drive. YVONNE: Well, actually Chapman Drive is part of the Pardee-Phillips, yes, because the pool was right there at Chapman Drive. JONI: Fifteenth? YVONNE: Well, there's Sahara that borders one portion of it. There was the El Bar El Market. So it's sort of all of that (area). JONI: Maryland Parkway almost down to Burnham. YVONNE: Yes. It was one of the original developments and we had a duplex. We were part of a duplex and our neighbors were the Starks. So you did this trip and you circle back into Las Vegas and you stop here. Joni, you’re wanting to go back home. JONI: Yes. But you’ve arrived. So you never went back to New Jersey on this trip? YVONNE: No. We stopped at that point. My brothers flew from the East Coast to Las Vegas. So we were here and my dad, I guess, noticed that there was a market, Panorama Market, and they had a snack bar. There was a sign that said, "Under new management." My father went up to whoever the manager was at the market and said, "Gee, I'd just like to let you know I've run a restaurant business Back East and if you ever need any help..." Whatever. The guy said, "Well, the guy hasn't shown up. He's been gone for some days or something. So why don't you just take it over?" So my dad took over the snack bar. He started with that. In the meantime, he was 8 trying to get in a job on the Strip. He knew The Characters. Do you remember their names? JONI: Johnny Rico, Frank and Carmine. Carmine was Johnny's brother and then there was Frankie, but I don't know Frank's last name. YVONNE: So those were some people that they knew in Las Vegas. I don't know to what extent they may or may not have helped him get work. It had only been four years since he had left Las Vegas, so I'm sure people still knew him. He got a job at the Sahara playing in the showroom at the Sahara. So then the Panorama Market kind of evolved into. . .I guess they bought bread and doughnuts and Danish and they brought it over to the snack bar to sell. Then eventually they had a bakery. They actually bought—no, they rented space and installed a bakery of their own. So when you say they, you're talking— YVONNE: My parents. Both parents were doing this together? YVONNE: Oh, yes. That was where Barry was flipping the— JONI: No, that was at Mayfair. Panorama was a really small bakery. YVONNE: No, no, no. This was the original place that they—this was down on Charleston below Boulder Highway; that's where they had a bakery. That's where they did baking. I remember my brother frying doughnuts. JONI: Young Electric Sign Company took (the location) over after us. Now it's...I can't think of the name of it, but it's a fixtures company and they do a lot of Christmas business. YVONNE: So they went from sort of buying baked goods and bringing it to the snack bar to actually then outfitting a space where they began to produce their own product. JONI: But there was a bakery in Panorama Market at that point. YVONNE: There was a bakery in Panorama Market? 9 JONI: Yes. Harry Levy. YVONNE: Their bakery? JONI: Yes. They put him in business. Al...[Levy]? YVONNE: Yes, but I don't think— JONI: Oh, yes. YVONNE: Oh, you think that was before that space below— JONI: Probably at the same time. And Panorama was operated by a Jewish group? JONI: Yes. And the owners were who? JONI: Harry Levy and Marvin...I'll have to think of his last name. YVONNE: Yes. So then things kind of evolved. So once they had put in this one bakery into Panorama, then they've opened up other outlets in other markets. So there was Market Town, El Bar El. There was the Sahara. JONI: Mayfair Market by the Sahara, Mayfair at Tropicana and Paradise. YVONNE: Right, right. Is that six? There were six. JONI: Then there was Somerset right by the Stardust. YVONNE: That one I don't remember. JONI: Then they took over Skaggs Alpha Beta on the corner of Desert Inn and Maryland Parkway and then the Boulevard Market about a half a mile away. So we have all these bakeries within a mile of each other. We were at the Boulevard Market, then we were at Skaggs Alpha Beta, then we were at El Bar El, which was just a mile down the road, and then up the road a mile to Sahara and then over to Oakey, down to Paradise. We also opened another production 10 plant—well, the Sahara Mayfair Market had an oven and a fryer, but then we opened another production place called a Taste of Paris. They took it over. It was on the corner of Paradise and Tropicana. It was right by the Mayfair Market there. So we had all these bakeries going that were twenty-four-hour bakeries. So they would take in like twenty-five dollars a shift maybe. Then we never counted the change. So about once a month we'd sit down at a picnic table and count all the change and roll it and bank it. So we always had bags of change in the house. YVONNE: Yes, we had lots of change in the house. We had bags and bags of money in my father's top drawer. I'd hear the ice cream truck coming by. I said, "I want to get a Fudgsicle®. So I'd go to the bag and take some change and go buy a Fudgsicle®, which was a dime at that time. So there wasn't a lot of high-level management of this recordkeeping at that time. JONI: My dad would think of the ideas; my mom would implement them. She had an old-time Rolodex that had two loops, like an arch. YVONNE: Instead of a three-by-five card, it was like a three-by-eight card, and it had these two holes punched in it so you could write stuff on it and then flip it over and write stuff on it. So that's how she kept her payables. JONI: So every day she would write a check. YVONNE: To somebody in that payable list. That's how she kept it going. That's fascinating. YVONNE: A lot of hard work. We did a lot of stuff at the house, too. She'd bring home cookies for Halloween and we'd be putting fondant on cookies for Halloween. JONI: Gingerbread houses at home. 11 YVONNE: Gingerbread houses, yes. We were always recruited into that work. JONI: But my dad would leave home around seven o'clock in the evening. YVONNE: Yes, seven fifteen. It wasn't too hard to get—because we were living... JONI: Paradise Palms. YVONNE: That's right, Paradise Palms. That was interesting. JONI: Desert Inn and Maryland. YVONNE: Desert Inn and Maryland Parkway. Because that was the first, quote, “planned community.” JONI: So it took him two minutes basically to get to the Sahara Hotel. YVONNE: Right. It was a very fast jaunt. JONI: Then he would YVONNE: Come back at— JONI: Well, then there would be in-between shows after the first show and he'd go across the street to the bakery at the Mayfair Market and do things and whatever. Then he'd go for the second show at eleven o'clock and get off at twelve thirty or one and he'd go back to the bakery. Then he 'd come back home may be around three. My mom would stay up with him and go to bed when he went to bed. So they would get up at like noon. So my brothers and my sister always helped me with breakfast and lunch and get out the door to school and that kind of thing. I was very independent, anyway. But then we'd have dinner together. Aroundfive or five thirty we would all have dinner together. Oh, my gosh. How wonderful is that? JONI: Yes. So Dad would come home from work because he'd go back to the bakery all day and work and Mom would be home or working at the bakery, at home working on the bakery, and 12 we'd have dinner, steak and potatoes. That’s terrific. That really is. Today that kind of tradition is hard to preserve, let alone to do it when you’ve got multiple businesses and careers going. YVONNE: I think eventually the multiplicity of outlets was just untenable and unmanageable. So they essentially eliminated most of them and then just had the bakery at the Boulevard, right? That was their primary production place and it was a great market. What time was that that the Boulevard was the primary location? JONI: Let's see here because I graduated in '74. So we left here in '70. So around '67. In 1967 that opened because I remember I had gone away to camp and came back and worked at the bakery. What was it called there? JONI: Freed's Boulevard Bakery. YVONNE: No, it was Freed's Royal Bakery. JONI: No, it was Freed's Royal Pastry Shops before that, but then it became—because they always used Royal, I think, for some reason in there. So we had Freed's Royal Pastry Shops. Then it went to Freed's Boulevard Bakery because we were in the Boulevard Market. Then got dropped down just to the Boulevard Market. A lot ofpeople knew us as the Boulevard Market. Then in 1969, I'd say, when they got rid of all the other bakeries except the Boulevard, it was a very strong business. That was the number-one market in Las Vegas. The owner of the market was a really great guy, Paul Moore. He always kept a good look out for the bakery. It was part of his plan that anything that was in his market, which was there was a deli and there was a yogurt shop and the bakery—and in the center there was a lady named Muriel Stevens; she had kind of a really gourmet pots and pans kind of thing. So my dad was able to retire from music. 13 Basically we had a head baker and we had a lady that had workedfor us for maybe fifteen years, maybe a couple other bakers and a couple other people at the counter. Basically my parents retired. So my mom was fifty and my dad was about fifty-seven. We moved to La Jolla for that year. My parents had bought a house in 1967 down in Baja, California. So we would go down to Baja on weekends, but my parents really wanted to be down there. I was their youngest; I was still in junior high school. So the next year when I started high school, I moved to Los Angeles and my sister and I shared an apartment and I went to high school there and I'd fly down on weekends to San Diego and they'd pick me up. Talk about independence. JONI: Oh, very much. I was the one who would grow up and say, "I'm spending the night at Vicky's tonight." No "Mommy, can I spend the night?" They had so much going, I was like this tag-along. They trusted that you had been raised well by them and your siblings. JONI: Yes. I was an ice skater. I used to spend, I don't know, six, seven hours a day at the ice rink. Before school we would do what was called patch, which were the figure eights and all of those. Then after school another parent would bring us back and we would skate the open session and around six o'clock there was a club session, which we would do patch and then jumping and things like that. Then we would go home and do our homework around eight o'clock. It was a great discipline. It really was. This is this L.A. that you were doing that? JONI: No, in Las Vegas. Where did people ice skate? JONI: It was at Commercial Center. There was an ice skating rink right there, right by Jackie 14 Fields Deli. It was great. So we did that. Then we had at that point just the Boulevard [Mall] for quite a few years. In 1979,1 decided to move back to Las Vegas. My parents ran it absentee management. So we would come back at holidays to help out. But in 1981—no, '83, my grandmother passed away. After she passed away, our holidays were kind of...I don't know, kind of nonexistent. Yvonne was away in school. Were you in medical school at that time? YVONNE: What year was that, Joni? JONI: It would have been—yes. No, no, you weren't in medical school. YVONNE: Well, 74 to 79, I'm in medical school. JONI: Right. So Yvonne was in California already and I came back here to live. So for me being in the bakery business meant holidays. It didn't matter if it was a Jewish holiday or Christian holiday or whatever. So in '81, my first child was born. So it was a lot of work being in the bakery business, but it was also very satisfying because around the holidays all of the Jewish people would come in and I'd see them. It was great. I knew a lot of people at that time. My parents moved away from Las Vegas; in about 1986, they moved to Florida to retire in Florida. So I basically was the only one in Las Vegas doing the bakery thing. It was a chore. It was a chore. So it sounds like your parents kind of retired twice. JONI: Yes. Once to Baja, California, and then to Florida. When you say they were absentee owners or managers, who was working or operating the business? JONI: We had a baker named Harry who had been with us many years and a lady named Fanny who had been with us many years. YVONNE: Barry worked, also. 15 JONI: Barry kind of came and went. That’s your brother. JONI: Yes. He kind of came and went. Sometimes he was in California. In fact, we opened a bakery in California in '71; that was for Barry. So after a few years he didn't want it and my dad offered it to me and I didn't want it. So we sold it. But then coming back to Las Vegas, after the first year, I guess it was 1980, the market got bought out by Mayfair Market and they were there about a year and they decided to close. So we were trying to figure out, okay, are we going to open another bakery or just call it a day? I was pregnant. So we decided we'll open another bakery. So we opened on December tenth, actually, of 1981; we opened the Tropicana and Eastern location. So still working hard and we at that point probably had maybe eight or ten employees. I don't know. I delivered a wedding cake to the top of the Dunes the day before my son was born. I placed an order with Anderson Dairy from the hospital. Work just kept going. But little by little, it just grew to be a pretty successful thing. That store, that location, for the huge explosion of population back then that's the only store that some people know coming to town. JONI: Right. Did the physical imprint of it ever change or was it always just that same size and you just worked within those parameters? JONI: We started out with sixteen hundred square feet, which was one storefront. Within the first year we went out back with a forty-foot trailer and also about four hundred square feet of refrigeration that we actually cut a hole in the building and put a big walk-in. Then progressively we went through that walk-in into about a thirty- or forty-foot freezer and then a second trailer. We enclosed the whole thing in fence. So out front it looked like this cozy little 16 place, but it was quite large. Then eventually we went t