Here at Babalú we never tire of Cuban American success stories. We congratulate Porto’s Bakery in Los Angeles for not only their wild success, but for bringing the delectable taste of Cuban pastries and bakery goods to the people of California.
Via the Orange County Register:
How Porto’s Bakery went from an underground Cuban operation to a beloved SoCal institution
After finishing her favorite Cuban sandwich from Porto’s Bakery & Cafe in Downey, Monica Oviedo becomes giddy when she learns the Los Angeles institution is days away from opening in Orange County.
“I’ve already clocked how long it’s going to take me – 15 minutes,” said Oviedo, of La Habra, who’s been trekking to Porto’s bakeries in Los Angeles for 16 years.
When the long-anticipated Buena Park café opens Wednesday with actor Andy Garcia at the ribbon cutting, expect epic lines. Over its 46-year history in Los Angeles, the Cuban bakery has earned a reputation for serving addictive – and dirt cheap – sweet and savory baked goods.
Porto’s expansion to Orange County, and next year to West Covina, comes as Cuba has seized a moment in the pop culture zeitgeist.
[…]
Baking to survive
Taking charge is at the heart of the Porto family legacy.
When Fidel Castro rose to power in Cuba, Raul Sr. lost his job at a cigar distribution warehouse. He was sent to a labor camp. His wife Rosa, an office manager at the cigar company, also lost her job.
She was left to fend for herself and three children: Betty, Raul Jr., and Margarita.
Rosa, a college graduate, was raised by a strong independent mother who came to Cuba from Spain. Self sufficiency runs through her veins. In 1960, the savvy business woman launched an underground baking operation in her house just to survive.
Using her mom’s tried-and-true recipes and a Sunbeam mixer, she made yellow sponge cakes, soaked in simple syrup and rum and filled with custard. She also made meat pies (pastel de carne).
Her clients would bring her ingredients (eggs, flour, sugar) to make the cakes and pay her with government rations: pigs, chickens, rice and beans.
It was a black market barter-and-trade operation; when police came to raid houses, the tight-knit neighborhood protected Rosa, hiding cakes and baking appliances so she wouldn’t get caught. The Portos lived this way for a decade before they were all approved to relocate to the United States.
“She took a risk because it was either that or starve,” Betty Porto said.
Continue reading HERE.
More power to them, and no doubt they would have succeeded anywhere, but I expect California doesn’t deserve them, or deserves them less than most other states. From what I can tell, they run a considerably more impressive operation than Versailles in Miami, which I’ve long found quite overrated and rather complacent (and no, satisfying clueless tourists from Des Moines is not good enough). Needless to say, in a normal Cuba, the Portos would have been equally successful and their business known throughout the island, but there were many such entrepreneurs in republican Cuba. Way to go.