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Popular plaza bakery changes hands
by Robb Fulcher
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Gabriel Mirfakhrae doesn't want to change "a thing" as he takes over the popular Downtown Bakery. Photo by Robb Fulcher |
After several years spent developing a popular seaside business, the Dellaripa family has sold its Downtown Bakery and Café on the Pier Plaza to spend more time with patriarch Joe Dellaripa, who is suffering from congestive heart failure and is awaiting a transplant.
"We didn’t want to sell it but we had to prioritize. We have to spend time with him," said a tearful Etus Dellaripa, Joe’s wife.
The family opened the bakery in 1996, shortly before workers began tearing up lower Pier Avenue to build the Plaza promenade.
"The community stuck with us and supported us," Etus Dellaripa said.
The bakery building, which formerly housed a T-shirt shop, was restored by the family to the status it had last enjoyed in the 1920s. The bakery soon became a morning meeting place for a segment of the community that often filled the indoor tables and spilled out onto the patio.
"We’ve seen people have babies and now the babies are walking and talking," Etus said. "They’ve been not so much customers, but family, or friends."
Her daughter Lisa set a side a law practice to work at the bakery along with her boyfriend Joe. The entire clan lives in Redondo Beach, where Joe remains at home, hoping to get on a list for a heart transplant.
"He’s in stage four of congestive heart failure. That’s the final stage. He’s had a history of heart problems for 20 years," Etus said.
"We really want to thank the community and ask them to give all their support to the new owner," Lisa said.
The bakery was purchased by a French restaurateur who moved with his wife Haydeh from Paris to Redondo Beach.
"I'm not going to change anything," said Gabriel Mirfakhrae, 37. "Perhaps I will add some French items, in time."
The Mirfakhrae family relocated in California to be close to relatives. Mirfakhrae came across Downtown Bakery through John Consolini of Sunbelt Business Brokers in Torrance.
Irregular regular
Among the Monday morning breakfast crowd at the patio tables were friends of the Dellaripa family, Deborah Hecht of Redondo Beach, her husband Tim Rhodes and their adoptive 14-month-old daughter Hannah. The couple had just come from the Torrance courthouse, where they had finalized Hannah's adoption.
"There are two reasons we came down," Hecht said. "This is an important day for us."
She wasn't kidding. Before marrying Rhodes and adopting Hannah, Hecht spent six years at the center of a highly publicized legal battle over custody of 12 vials of frozen sperm from her former partner, a Los Angeles businessman who had killed himself.
During the dispute, Hecht taped an "Oprah" TV show segment at the bakery's outdoor tables on the Plaza.
"I should call 'Oprah' back," Hecht said. "After all that we went through, we made a lot of law."
In 1997 Hecht was awarded custody of the sperm, after an appeals court ruled in her favor and the California Supreme Court declined to review the case. Custody of the sperm had been challenged by the grown children of Hecht’s late partner, who wanted the material destroyed.
The businessman's children were represented in court by their attorney mother, who had divorced their late father years before.
After years in court, custody of the sperm did not result in childbirth.
"My body wouldn't have babies," said Hecht, now 46. After marrying Rhodes, the couple turned to adoption.
"It's so awesome," Hecht said. "I have a baby." ER