El Chico Bakery Inc

El Chico Bakery has been baking on Cherokee Street since 1998, and it is one of the businesses that made this end of the street what it is. The bakery is family owned and family run, and the recipes came from Mexico with the family.

What it does is a Mexican panaderia in the full sense. Pan dulce – the sweet breads that a Mexican bakery lives by, in the whole range of shapes and colours – fills the trays, and the way to buy it is the traditional way: take a tray and a pair of tongs at the door and choose as you go. Alongside the sweet bread there are fruit-filled empanadas, tres leches cakes, and cakes made to order for birthdays, weddings, quinceaneras and everything else a family needs a cake for.

That last part matters more than a visitor might guess. A neighbourhood bakery that makes the cakes for its community’s celebrations occupies a particular place in that community, and El Chico has been occupying it for more than a quarter of a century.

The bakery also sells at local farmers’ markets, which is how a good many people outside the neighbourhood first meet it.

El Chico stands at 2634 Cherokee Street, at the eastern end of the street. For anyone spending a day on Cherokee Antique Row it is worth the walk east – and it is difficult to leave with only one thing.