Doebler's to Close

Some bad news for the neighborhood today...

High prices force bakery to close
By Tim Tresslar, Staff Writer
Dayton Daily News
Saturday, March 22, 2008

DAYTON — Few would envy the choice Holly Wabler faced earlier this month. Wabler, the owner of Doebler's Bakery, decided that she will close her specialty cake shop on April 19, ending its run of nearly 46 years.

The bakery's profits have declined, gnawed away by skyrocketing costs for flour and other ingredients, Wabler said. Combine that with the effort it takes to run a business, and Wabler said she realized it was time to close the 510 Xenia Ave. bakery.

"It was very difficult," she said.

Others in the industry also find themselves saddled with soaring overhead. The cost of flour, eggs and milk as well as crude oil and natural gas are buffeting the country's bakers, said Lee Sanders, a spokeswoman with the American Bakers Association. For example, flour prices have climbed 50 percent since January and 150 percent since May 2007, she said.

In Wabler's case, she has spent most of her life working at the bakery founded in 1962 by her parents, Robert and Geraldine Doebler.

"They say I was icing cupcakes when I was 4 years old, standing on a bucket," she said. Later, as a student at Wright State University, she'd arrive before dawn and work for hours before going to class. In 1983, she bought the business from her parents.

She continued to operate it as a full-service bakery until 1997 when she switched to baking cakes. This allowed her to start her day later and to cut back her hours, freeing her to take care of her ailing mother and her eldest daughter.

My wife and I bought our wedding cake there, and it was wonderful.... what little of it we had, anyway.