She ran bakery with special family touch

Friday, Sept. 8, 2006 | 7:28 a.m.

Whether it was putting black frosting on orange Halloween cookies or overseeing the preparation of 5,000 wedding cakes a year, Esther Fried made sure her bakery never lost its special family feeling.

Until she got ill a year ago, the co-founder of Freeds Bakery of Las Vegas ran the behind-the-scenes operations that helped get the landmark business recognition in Bon Appetit magazine and on cable TV shows.

"All of her children grew up in the business and Mom made it a great educational experience," said Yvonne Fried of Ashland, Ore. "At one time we had seven bakeries in town, but no matter how large we got, she made sure we kept that family touch."

Fried, whose recipe for fruit-filled rugula cookies and other cakes, pies and pastries launched a bakery in 1959 that grew from a mom-and-pop operation into a world-recognized business, died Wednesday at St. Rose Dominican Hospitals-Sienna Campus. She was 86.

Services for the Las Vegas resident of 50 years will be at 10 a.m. Monday at King David Chapel.

Esther Fried founded the bakery with her husband, Milton, who decided to misspell the business's name so that customers would pronounce it correctly, the family said. Otherwise, people probably would have mispronounced Frieds and given customers the sense that the baked goods were deep-fried.

Milton Fried, who prior to opening the bakery was a musician at the Sands, Sahara and other Strip hotels, died in December 1996 at age 83.

Earlier that year, Bon Appetit named Freeds Bakery one of the top 10 places to eat in Las Vegas. The bakery also was featured in the April 2002 edition of Martha Stewart Weddings magazine.

Under Esther's leadership, the bakery also appeared on "Food Finds" and "$40 a Day," both on the Food Network.

Having seven locations in the 1970s when Las Vegas' population was one-fifth what it is today, Freeds Bakery eventually was consolidated into one business at 4780 S. Eastern Ave.

The original Freeds Bakery opened in what was the Panorama Market at Hinson Street and Charleston Boulevard.

Today, the bakery has 30 employees and the wedding cake output has increased tenfold since it produced 500 in 1959, the family said.

Celebrities who have over the years frequented Freeds include tennis star Andre Agassi, entertainer Wayne Newton, singer Diana Ross, comedian Jerry Lewis, talk show host Johnny Carson, pianist Liberace and golfer Tiger Woods, the Fried family said.

Born Esther Skolnick on Oct. 16, 1919, in Denver, she was raised in Denver and Salt Lake City, where she graduated from East High School.

She met Milton Fried on a blind date at the Hotel Utah in Salt Lake City, and they married in 1942.

The Frieds initially settled in New York City, where he worked as a Broadway musician and she as a copy writer for display store advertisements. Esther later worked in marketing.

The Frieds moved to Las Vegas in 1953 and back to New York in 1956 before settling in Las Vegas three years later.

In addition to her daughter, Fried is survived by another daughter, Joni Fried of Las Vegas; three sons, Stephen Fried of Kingston, Mass., Barry Fried of San Diego and Paul Fried of Sylmar, Calif.; two brothers, Malcolm Skolnick of Houston, and Gerald Skolnick of Beaumont, Texas; and nine grandchildren.

She was preceded in death by a brother, Aaron Skolnick.

The family said donations can be made in Esther Fried's memory to the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous in New York, or to the City of Hope in Duarte, Calif.