Elise Gurney, Rachel Kittaka, and Max Timm interviewed Alejandra Jimenez of Panaderia La Loma in Burnsville, Minnesota.
My name is Alejandra Jiménez and I’ve been working here like a year and a half. I’m the register and sometimes I help the guys to prepare the bread and I also take orders for cakes. I come always like five o’clock and then I close.
We do cakes for any occasion, and our bread is Mexican bread and it’s very popular for people. They really like it, and it’s good prices too. In Mexico it’s the most typical of the bread they do and they also do some from Salvador. It’s like a part of our traditions and our memories, and that’s something very cultural that we do. This business, it looks really like [a] Mexican bakery. So, when the customers come, I think they get so used to see this, that that’s why they buy here.
I live around ten years in Minnesota. I came from California. I live in Shakopee and I see they need people and I asked the owner and that’s how I come here. I’m not very familiar to this area. I just come shopping to the mall. My parents came to this country and [when] I was thirteen years old they decide to bring the family here. It’s a better type of life to live than Mexico. Right now my parents are in Mexico because my grandpa passed away, so my grandma is alone. It’s beautiful there but the economy is very bad. I have two kids in school here – my oldest is fifteen and my youngest is thirteen. They love it here so I think I have to get used to what they want. Sometimes I ask my oldest if he can help me to do boxes or something easier but he says, “Oh no it’s boring, it’s hot!” He give me a lot of excuses but he do like the bread.
[Panaderia la Loma is] pretty new, like two years, two and a half. [The owners, Fernando and Tomas] have another bakery, so they started initially in there and they make this one. The other one is in Crystal but that one is like a market because they sell more stuff in there, like groceries. And when they start [Panaderia la Loma], they don’t have a lot of customers, but right now a lot of people know them because the bread is very good. I’ve noticed a big change. By the time I’ve been working here I’ve seen the business grow up more. And then I see people coming from a lot of places like Farmington, Bloomington, St. Paul, Minneapolis. A lot of people they come and order the cakes because somebody tell that they was a good quality and then they come. In the beginning they use the radio but they don’t do it anymore. So, I think it’s just telling one to other and that’s how they come. It’s fresh and it’s very good prices, so I think that’s what is coming to make more people come all the time. We have all kinds of customers. We have American and Vietnamese, we have all Korean, and from Somalia—they really like the bread in here.
They open seven days six o’clock and they close seven days ten o’clock. I think [Fernando] comes around like four or five because they do the bread everyday. His brother, he do the cakes, and the guy who do the dough, they have to wake up every day—it’s fresh, fresh bread, so by six o’clock they have to be everything ready. In the weekends they have a helper too, and she come to help because it’s very full in the weekends. In the weekends, you can see the line. It’s very, very busy. [And] like the afternoons. You know like around 6 o’clock I think it’s when people come out from work. In summer time it gets very busy.
A lot of people like this white bread, and that’s plain bread, and that’s most for sandwiches. And they have two kinds. This is the flat kind, like for tortas, and this one is, like bolillo, and this is only fifty cents apiece. So these ones, they’re very popular. This one is made with just milk and they have some nuts inside. And this one is like a shortcake. And this one has cream cheese and coconut, and this one has Splenda. Most of the prices are sixty cents. Those are very popular, and also the ones with filling; Bavarian cream, cream cheese, pineapple. This one has cheese and jalepeño. I like a lot this one. It’s made with cheese—powdered cheese. This one is made with molasses. Churros [are] really good too and the conchas. This is very typical.
They get a lot of orders for cake in summer time. Like you can see it right now, it’s a lot of orders. This is a three-milk cake, and it’s one-fifty. And they have also flan. It’s like a custard. It’s also one-fifty. And they have also choco-flan—that is chocolate cake with flan, and that’s two-twenty-five. [Fernando] made this formula. The chocolate-flan they sell a lot. This wedding cake is choco-flan. A lot of people come for that. And it’s, like I said, very good prices. And if one customer needs a cake – a special cake, in a specialty sense – they ask for the order and then Fernando gets interested. Make happy the customer you know? And you can see Fernando’s brother, he do the designs. I think [it’s] a special gift. I don’t know how to do it and it’s very complicated. You need to be very gentle because you can screw up in there, so I just stay here. Look at how beautiful is that one.
They have some [for] first communion, so any occasion—they come and order the cakes. After they celebrate Los Reyes, that is when they find the little Jesus inside the bread. So they make a special bread called rosca. They put baby Jesus inside the bread and after the people take it to the home, if they found it, they have to make a special food and then invite other people and celebrate too. And in November they do a bread they call pan de muerto. And that’s another typical bread. They give donations to church when people ask. December 12th is Virgin Mary so they donate the bread to the church.
I am really happy [with] what I do. I always try to make the customer feel okay when they come and I offer options. I really like to talk to the people and offer what we have here.
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Elise Gurney, “From Spaghetti and Meatballs to Pizza: The Invention of Italian-American Restaurant Staples by Immigrants, for Immigrants” (170.6KB PDF Document)24 August 2011
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Rachel Kittaka, “Panadería la Loma Presents: A Freshly Baked History of Mexican American Bakeries” (104.2KB PDF Document)24 August 2011