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Lovebirds Cafe and Bakery
For the Love of Baking
Before Iranian immigrants Jahanshah (l) and Jahansooz Jomehri (r) opened their doors in 1984, their mother imagined a romantic ambiance for the shop her two sons were creating. She came up with the name "Lovebirds” for the business, which was originally conceived as a trendy combination juice bar and ice cream parlor. She pictured a cozy gathering place with heart-shaped wrought iron chairs where honeymooners could come to enjoy an ice cream cone together.
They never got the heart-shaped chairs, and the original ice cream parlor concept eventually gave way to a more lucrative bakery café. But the name stuck, and so did the welcoming atmosphere that Mrs. Jomehri envisioned.
Today, the upscale Alhambra café, located 12 miles east of Los Angeles in the historic old-Pasadena area, has built a reputation as a hip, hangout—a hot-spot known for its great food and comfortable character. It serves signature California-style sandwiches, and an impressive line of scratch-baked gourmet French and American pastries to as many as 600 customers a day, and runs a strong catering business that accounts for almost a third of its sales. People come to Lovebirds not just to eat, but also to relax and socialize. Even Hollywood celebrities and local politicians frequently stop by for a taste of its local charm.
Searching for an identity
Lovebirds' evolution from ice cream parlor to bakery cafŽ didn't happen overnight. It took several years and a lot of trial and error as the Jomehri brothers struggled to build an identity that would give them a unique niche in the competitive California market. Educated as a chemist, Jahanshah Jomehri admits he knew little about running a business at first. He learned many lessons the hard way, but pressed on, focusing on advice he got from his good friend and accountant. "He was always telling us to look at what we've got and look for ways to improve it," Jomehri said.
Without always realizing it, Jomehri seemed to have an uncanny knack for anticipating trends. Lovebirds was one of the first stores in California to offer frozen yogurt, and it marketed nutritional fruit drinks with power-packed names before most Californians even knew what they were. Jomehri saw the demand for low fat, health foods, and incorporated European-style breads into his sandwich menu before the artisan trend took off, too.
It was four years, though, before Lovebirds began baking on premise - a huge change in direction that Jomehri plunged into with little knowledge of what he was getting into. "We were having trouble with the driver who delivered our sandwich bread," he recalls. "At the time, our volume was so small, no one else would deliver to us. It was a bad situation, but we thought we'd have to put up with this nasty driver because the idea of baking bread ourselves was just unbelievable to us. Then one day I got fed up and told the driver, 'That's it. This is the last day you deliver bread to us. From now on, we'll make our own bread.'"
He bought a used oven, and set his sights on learning how to bake. "That was a big jump for us. The added equipment was a huge investment, but it was the best thing we could do for our business. It was very exciting. We were baking from the store, and the aroma was fantastic. It nearly doubled our business, and people were finally getting to know us. We were starting to get famous!"
Jomehri caught on fast, attending every bakery tradeshow he could, and reading countless baking publications to increase his knowledge and elevate the quality of his baked goods. Expanding the product line to include pastries was a logical next step for a man whose chemistry background helped him to easily grasp the principles of scratch baking. "I understand the chemical aspects of what happens in the baking process, which gives me a better concept of how and why things are done in certain ways."
In his chemistry labs, Jomehri learned to apply mixing methods that achieve the most results with the least effort. As a result, he sometimes uses different mixing methods than formulas call for. For example, to create a softer cinnamon roll dough when using high gluten flour that develops rapidly, Jomehri incorporates the butter into the dry ingredients first, then adds the water to keep mixing time to a minimum.
Well over half of Lovebirds' pastries and breads are made from its own signature formulas, and high quality ingredients are crucial. When Progressive Baker¨ flour became available on the West Coast through Honeyville Grain, Lovebirds began converting almost all its pastry and bread formulas to the Progressive Baker¨ brand.
A passion for serving customers
Beyond excellent quality, what sets Lovebirds apart is its total dedication to the customer. "We understand that the people who walk in our door have worked hard for their money, and we make sure to always give them a product that is worth the price they pay."
Lovebirds nurtures its relationship with customers by constantly trying to accommodate their needs. "We are 100 percent dedicated to our customers. If they want something we don't already carry, we'll make it special for them."
For example, when a local optometrist and frequent customer asked for a wheat bread with walnuts and raisins, Jomehri went to work to develop the right flavor profile. "Every time we adjusted the formula, we had our customer taste it. He'd say, add more honey, or don't put in so many walnuts. We kept trying until we got it right. After about six weeks, we had a nice, heavy wonderful bread." It's now part of the Lovebirds repertoire, fittingly called "Dr. Snyder's Bread."
Jomehri believes the appeal of scratch baked goods is more than a passing trend, because consumers will continue to see value in the high quality standards that progressive bakers uphold. "If you train people to come to you for a particular taste that they can't get anywhere else, they'll come back for it." He plans to open a second store and add more vegetarian sandwiches to his menu.
He takes pride is his bakery's reputation as a local gathering place. In fact, Jomehri knows of at least four couples who either met or spent their first date at the cafe and later tied the matrimonial knot! From the looks of things, the love affair between this gourmet bakery and its customers shows no signs of letting up.