Photo: Araceli Martinez Ortega / Impremedia
Aniceto “Cheto” Polanco and his wife Nolbe inherited a taste for baking from their families. Both are sons of baker mothers. Nolbe even sold bread in Copala, her town in Guerrero, Mexico, but it took several decades for them to dare to open their own business in the garage of her house in the city of Compton, California. And six years later they begin to see the fruits of their effort.
“It was difficult at first. To put it in some way, we would go out to downtown Los Angeles with 100 loaves and return with 200 because they were not sold. We had no clients. They didn’t know us. Today, our bakery leaves for 5 people to live and we even have profits”, says Cheto Polanco proudly.
“Of Guerrero Copala Style Bread My son Giovani’s university studies are paid for”, he adds.
And it is that the Polanco Family found a market niche among those immigrants from Guerrero, Mexico, living in Los Angeles and beyond, who yearn for the flavors of the bread of the state where they were born.
Cheto and his wife met as children in Copala, Guerrero where they were born and raised working in the bakeries of their respective families, and even competed with each other.
“I used to go out to sell bread, but I had to wait for her sister to finish before I could wear it,” Nolbe recalls.
When they were 20 years old, Cheto and Nolbe immigrated to Los Angeles together and settled in the city of Compton where they have lived for more than three decades. In Los Angeles they had three children who are now adults. The youngest Giovani Polanco studies electrical engineering, but is also his right hand in the bakery.
It all started when, on her days off, Nolbe, who works as a nursing assistant, started making bread as a hobby, but then she started selling it to neighbors and co-workers.
“I bought him a professional blender and a small industrial oven,” says Cheto.
But what started as a hobby became a small business six years ago.
“We decided to start selling artisanal bread, typical of Guerrero, because here and I can assure you that in the entire United States there is no one who makes and sells it,” says Cheto.
This is how they began to make the traditional breads of their home state, the egg yolk breads, the combs, the worms, the children, the drunkards, the horns, the shells, the bald ones, among others with a peculiar name.
Nolbe taught his son and Cheto to make bread. “At first I didn’t like it, it didn’t come out, but my wife taught me until I learned, and she needed us all to know because she didn’t want to leave her job at the hospital as a nursing assistant, and we wanted to continue in the business; and also that for that time, I was left without a job.”
Nolbe says that whether he wanted to or not, Cheto learned how to make bread very well.
Two other women from Guerrero, friends of the family, Aradeli Uriostegui and Reyna Silva, have joined the preparation of the bread. Between the 5 of them they knead and bake from Tuesday to Friday from 5 in the morning until 10 at night.
“We rest Sunday and Monday.”
Cheto says that they already have vendors who are in charge of distributing their bread, and they have loyal customers as far as Las Vegas, San Juan Capistrano and Oxnard, not to mention Los Angeles.
“Little by little we became customers, thanks to the fact that our bread is handmade, and we do it with a lot of care and love.”
Giovani says that the Guerrero Copala Style Bread As they have put the business, it is sold wholesale and retail. “People like it because it has texture, softness and flavor.”
Cheto dreams of one day leaving his garage to open a large bakery in Los Angeles and “why not, have franchises”.
And he feels encouraged because he says that his bakery is exclusive to Guerrero and nobody makes it.
Best of all, the small artisan bakery has brought them together as a family.
To order the Guerrero Copala Style Bread call 310-490-6390 and 310-292-5096; or go to 14423 S. Castlegate avenue in Compton, California, 90221.