La Mexicana Bakery, a panadería at 24th and York streets in the Mission District of San Francisco, has been a neighborhood institution for 54 years, making it the oldest surviving panadería on the 24th Street corridor.

A Taste of Home

The smell of freshly baked pastries at La Mexicana Bakery entices passers-by to come inside and grab a plastic tray and some tongs to pick out their favorite treats. For its loyal, cash-only customers, the smell and flavors of the Mexican panaderías they grew up in keep them returning to the bakery.

Asunción Morales, who is from Puebla, Mexico, said in Spanish of the pastries at La Mexicana, “It tastes like a little bit of my land.” 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.

A Hidden Talent

At the counter, apron on four days a week, is Ernesto Herrera, tallying the purchases and bagging the pastries. Herrera, 59, has been working at La Mexicana Bakery for six years. Patience, he says, is the most important aspect of his job. But what customers may not know is that Herrera has a secret talent – he writes and releases original songs under the name Branner Oliveras.

Herrera’s favorite pastry is the Rebanada de azúcar, which looks like a giant slice of bread topped with butter and sugar. The most common pick by customers is the concha. Some customers, eager to eat their pastry, excitedly take a bite out of it even before they’ve walked out the door.

Original reporting: Mission Local — read the source article.