Cookies from Panadería Oaxaqueña fresh out of the oven. Credit: Andres Ibarra | Arts & Life Producer
Panaderia Oaxaqueña, a local Mexican bakery, went from selling fresh bread out of a Chevrolet Astro van to serving as a staple to the local Hispanic community.
Alfa Cruz-Santos, co-owner of Panaderia Oaxaqueña and an Ohio State alumna, said she could recall childhood memories of moving to Columbus, only to discover there weren’t many places that offered a genuine taste of her culture. After realizing the city lacked a strong Hispanic community, the Cruz-Santos family started Panaderia Oaxaqueña to provide Columbus with an authentic Mexican bakery experience.
“We moved over here when I was 2 or 3, and that’s when we realized there was no Mexican bakery, there was no way you could find baked goods here, so my mom said, ‘OK, well let’s put that to use,’” Alfa Cruz-Santos said. “They would send my siblings and I door to door to sell [Talera bread].”
In a Hispanic community, a bakery is more than just a place to get bread and sweets, Alfa Cruz-Santos said. A bakery is vital to the structure of a Hispanic community, she said, and provides a home away from home for patrons.
The Cruz-Santos family built Panaderia Oaxaqueña with the goal of bringing memories of Mexico to Columbus. Genesis Cruz-Santos, co-owner of the bakery alongside his siblings and an Ohio State alumnus, said one of the goals his parents had with the bakery was to ensure their culture lived on for generations.
“Their purpose was to make a business so people can come in and get a sense of home when they need a concha,” Genesis Cruz-Santos said. “It’s a memory — they smell it and say, ‘I’m thinking of my bakery from back at home.’ [My parents] wanted that sense of memory, that tradition, that culture, and for it not to be lost with time.”
Initially, the bakery sold bread out of a van before opening its first store at 63 S. Murray Hill Road in 1998, Alfa Cruz-Santos said.
The Cruz-Santos family worked hard to open up their own bakery and provide Columbus with a Mexican bakery experience unlike any other, Alfa Cruz-Santos said. The biggest thing that sets her family’s bakery apart from others is that they import all of the ingredients directly from Mexico, she said.
“Every single ingredient that we use — we use nata, so la nata, grosella, grageas, canela, everything we use — we bring in from Mexico,” Alfa Cruz-Santos said. “A lot of customers will come to me and say, ‘We tried this place, and we tried this place, but there’s something about here that is distinguishable,’ and I always say to them, ‘Well, we don’t use any chemicals or preservatives, we make our bread every day fresh and our ingredients come directly from Mexico.’”
The authentic sense of community Panaderia Oaxaqueña brings to the table draws crowds from all around the world. Sinai Cruz-Santos, co-owner of the bakery and an Ohio State alumna, said customers from a multitude of states — such as New Jersey, California and Tennessee — make the trek to the bakery.
“For us, it’s kind of an honor,” Sinai Cruz-Santos said. “We’re here in the community, people know us, and it kind of brings us together too — not just the people from Mexico, but even now we’re getting a lot of people from all over Central America, and it’s nice to teach them about our culture.”
