Mothers, daughters find sweet success in bakery dreams

After Kathy Bastian was laid off from her job in March 2014 at Lowe’s in Detroit, she packed up and moved more than 2,000 miles west to help her daughter, Heidi Heath, live out her dream.

“When I lost my job, I said to myself, ‘You’re old and nobody will want to hire you,’ ” Bastian said. “Opening a bakery was a dream of my mother’s and Heidi’s, so I said, ‘Let’s open a bakery.’ ”

For the past five months, Heath has been serving up her grandmother’s cheesecake recipes alongside her mother at Gotta Love Cheesecake on North Rainbow Boulevard.

“It’s important to carry on her legacy,” Heath said of her grandmother who died in 2010. “It was important to her and it’s something we definitely had to do.”

Bastian oversees the front of the house while Heath bakes the cheesecakes in the evening after she gets out of work at Aliante, where she works as a relations and risk manager.

“She’s here a majority of the time and I bake at night, so we miss each other most of the time,” Heath said of her mother. “Saturday is mainly the only day she tries to kick me out.”

“I want her to enjoy life,” Bastian added. “I’m always telling her, ‘I don’t need you here, go away. Go do something.’ ”

Bastian added that she and her daughter get along very well — they even live together with Heath’s husband and daughter — however, their personalities are anything but similar.

“The biggest challenge is that we have such drastic personality differences,” Heath said. “I’m always saying to her, ‘Why are you talking so much, leave the customers alone.’ ”

Gotta Love Cheesecake offered nearly 40 flavors when they first opened including Heath’s grandmother’s recipes — Helen’s originals as they’re referred to on the menu — as well as new flavors Heath is constantly creating.

“I get bored and create new flavors like peach cobbler, banana pudding, pistachio and Neapolitan — though I haven’t perfected that one yet,” she said. “I can’t decide if I want the chocolate layer on the top or on the bottom. It’s difficult.”

Kitchen struggles notwithstanding, Bastian said she’s proud to be by her daughter’s side.

“This is her dream and the cool part is I get to see it from the ground up,” Bastian said. “I have a blast here … I really enjoy it.”

This Mother’s Day is Bastian’s first in the Silver State, and the pair said they’ll likely spend it by the pool.

“Heidi will barbecue, I’ll go swimming then Heidi will go swimming and we’ll be lazy,” Bastian said. “That’s our celebration.”

Heath added, “My husband, David asked what we wanted to do for Mother’s Day and I said, ‘Nothing.’ I don’t want to bake anything. I’ll barbecue because it doesn’t require me to be in the kitchen.”

ANOTHER BAKERY DREAM

Across town at Bakeshop Las Vegas, another mother helped make a bakery dream possible.

Last year, University of Nevada, Las Vegas graduate Samantha Krerowicz’s mother, Beth, father, Jack, and sister, Kristin, moved from Chicago to Las Vegas so the family could open a bakery together.

“We’ve always talked about having a bakery,” Kristin said. “You have to trust who you work with, and I don’t know if I trust anyone more than I trust them.”

Samantha oversees administrative tasks and marketing while Beth and Kristin bake all of the treats at Bakeshop Las Vegas, which opened in August on Anthem Village Drive in Henderson.

Kristin said working with family is a unique opportunity.

“It’s different because they have your entire history and can use it at their disposal,” she said. “It can be a joyous or horrendous family reunion every day.”

For Beth, balancing being a parent and colleague has been difficult.

“You move from being a parent to being a co-worker and you have to get away from saying, ‘I’m your mother and I said so,’ ” she said. “But I still throw that card out every now again.”

The Krerowiczes said they spend less than 40 hours a week apart as Kristin and Samantha rent a house together and their parents live less than 2 miles away.

“Every day is Mother’s Day,” Samantha said.

Superior customer service and old-fashioned desserts are what the Krerowicz family hopes will keep customers coming back to Bakeshop Las Vegas for years.

They’re so dedicated to ensuring their customers’ needs are met that they’ve decided to open for a few hours every holiday for customer pickups.

“We’ve been here every holiday because having a new business, you have a lot to prove and picking up things on the actual holiday is more convenient for many of our customers,” Kristin said.

This year is the first Mother’s Day for Bakeshop Las Vegas, which will be open from 10 a.m. to noon.

After the Krerowiczes leave the bakery, they said they might have lunch or dinner together to celebrate Mother’s Day.

“I’m spending the day with my children, and I don’t need all that kind of stuff,” Beth said. “We’ll go out to lunch one day. … It doesn’t have to be on Mother’s Day.”

TAPPING CULINARY SKILLS

Ten years ago at age 19, Allyson Ames enlisted the help of her mother, Sondra, to open a creative and artistic business that also used her culinary skills.

“This was prior to the cupcake craze and there was nothing like a fun, whimsical bakery where you could come in and have a party,” Ames said. “I wanted it to be like you were walking into Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.”

The duo debuted their first Wonderland Bakery location in Newport Beach, Calif., in 2005 before turning to Las Vegas where they opened an additional store at Downtown Summerlin in January.

“In the beginning it was tough to transition from a mother-daughter relationship to a business partnership, but we’ve had 10 years to work the kinks out,” Ames said of working with her mother. “I also have a partner who will work long hours with me and do what we need to do.”

Sondra said she’s been able to support her daughter by working with her.

“This is her business, and I’m here to support her,” Sondra said. “She teaches me new things every day and oftentimes I sit back and think, ‘Wow, I’m so proud of you.’ ”

Like the Krerowicz family, the Ameses will be working at the bakery on Mother’s Day focusing on helping other’s celebrate the occasion.

“Whatever the holiday, we spend it in the store and we’ll celebrate before or after,” Ames said.

“It brings joy to us to be able to touch other people’s lives,” Sondra said. “To bring joy to special occasions and make everyday a celebration — that’s the greatest gift we can give.”

Contact reporter Ann Friedman at afriedman@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4588. Find @AnnFriedmanRJ on Twitter.