The smell of freshly baked pastries at La Mexicana Bakery, a panadería at 24th and York streets in the Mission, entices passers-by to come inside, grab a plastic tray and some tongs, and pick out the pastries that catch their eye.
For its loyal, cash-only customers, its smell and flavors of the Mexican panaderías they grew up in keep them returning to the neighborhood institution that has been open for 54 years.
That makes it the oldest panadería on the 24th Street corridor that still has its doors open. La Victoria, which opened in 1951 and would be 75 years old, is now closed.
“It tastes like a little bit of my land,” Asunción Morales, who is from Puebla, Mexico, said in Spanish of the pastries at La Mexicana.
Morales now lives in the Mission and says she comes to the bakery almost daily to buy a concha to enjoy with her morning coffee.
Later that day, Jeffer Reynosa was there to buy a concha and had a similar sense.
“It has the closest flavor to my city, and the perfect soft texture,” said the 25-year-old, who arrived in San Francisco from Mexico City just six months ago.
The prices are also a draw. In a city where a latte can easily put you out $8, La Mexicana’s piping-hot drip coffee, flavored with real cinnamon, is only $3 for a small and $3.50 for a large. You can get a bolillo — a small roll — for 30 cents, and a concha for $2.
And they last. After “three or four days,” one patron said in Spanish, the pastries are still “very, very good.”
On a recent Monday, the customer piled a mound of various pastries onto her tray, some glistening and glossy, others crusted in fine sugar. A few were adorned with rainbow sprinkles, and others had a crust of coconut flakes.
She brings the assortment home to her family of five, who live at Mission and 30th streets. Her elderly parents have one pastry in the morning and one in the afternoon, always with coffee.
“There are other closer panaderías, but we come here,” she said.
The panadería is mostly quiet and meditative. The sonic backdrop is the humming of the refrigerator intermixed with the rustle of paper bags being filled with fresh pastries and bread, and customers navigating their selections.
“Quiero chocolate,” a small child said to his mother as he reached for a concha on a bookshelf-like rack of pastries.
“No lo toques — don’t touch it,” his mother responded, carefully grabbing her son the chocolate pastry with tongs and placing it on their tray.
The panadería worker with a hidden talent
At the counter, apron on four days a week, is Ernesto Herrera, tallying the purchases and bagging the pastries.
“The customers are the only thing that maintains the store,” Herrera said as he accepted his customers’ bills and coins.
Herrera, 59, has been working at La Mexicana Bakery for six years. Patience, he says, is the most important aspect of his job.
He’s had to deal with customers stealing bread from the shelves without paying; one time, a mentally ill man stabbed him in the eye with tongs, prompting the police to come, he said.
As a result of the stabbing, Herrera, who is from El Salvador, is now pursuing a U-Visa, a temporary legal status for victims of crimes who cooperate with police.
“I love this job, because the time passes quickly,” he said, using a rag to wipe the powdered sugar and crumbs off of a tray before stacking it up for the next customer.
The bakery has the panadería staples, including conchas, bolillo (simple bread) and cuerno (Mexican-style croissants). And there is also bigote de piña (filled with pineapple), turtle-shaped pastries with raisin eyes, and pierna pan dulce in varying flavors.
During the holidays, the three bakers also make seasonal favorites like pan de reyes.
Herrera’s favorite: Rebanada de azúcar, which looks like a giant slice of bread topped with butter and sugar. The most common pick by customers: Conchas.
Some customers, eager to eat their pastry, excitedly take a bite out of it even before they’ve walked out the door.
“People love this bakery, and I am not just saying it because I work here,” said Herrera. He says some customers even come from Richmond or San Jose for the pastries.
Nicole Banks, a mother who lives in the Bayview, says she has been coming to the bakery since her Potrero Hill daycare first took her class there on several field trips. On a recent Monday, she bought a quesadilla salvadorena, made of rice flour, with a slight cheese flavor and a sprinkling of sesame seeds.
At the register, she discovered she was 50 cents short.
“Next time,” Herrera said in his limited English.
Occasionally, Herrera, who writes and releases original songs under the name Branner Oliveras, plays his sonidero music — a genre of upbeat dance ballads that originated in Mexico City — over the sound system.
But mostly, he keeps his job at the panaderia separate, taking home an income so that he can pursue his true passion of songwriting.
“I dream that my music will be known everywhere,” he said in Spanish.