Latino-owned businesses throughout the Twin Cities are struggling.
Threats of deportation under President Trump have chilled shopping at international grocers and made employees frightened to come to work, with Daniel Hernandez, owner of the Colonial Market chain of grocery stores, telling Sahan Journal it’s “like a pandemic nightmare.”
“People are afraid to go out, they are afraid to spend, they are afraid of what will happen to their future,” Leopoldo Sanchez, owner of Dulceria La Piñata in Lake Street’s Mercado Central, told MPR last month. Just this weekend, Rep. Ilhan Omar stopped by Midtown Global Market to chat with business owners like Manny Gonzalez of Manny’s Tortas about the ongoing impact of the Trump administration's draconian immigration policies.
And if that’s true for well-established and well-loved immigrant-owned businesses like Manny’s, imagine how tough it must be opening a new restaurant in this climate. That logic is what drew me to Jesus Alcocer’s new Mexican bakery, Papá Chuy’s, earlier this week. Well… that and the incredible-looking empanadas and tres leches cakes and conchas the bakery has been posting on Facebook.
Papá Chuy’s opened last month at 2409 Lyndale Ave. S. in Minneapolis’s Whittier neighborhood. It’s a big building, and you’ll have to enter the door to the right once inside—just follow the signs and/or the smell of caramelized sugar and chocolate.
In truth, I stopped by Papá Chuy’s to grab a single baked good, maybe two, on the way to a podcast recording earlier this week. But then, the soft, warm glow of the pastry case beckoned: orejas, cuerno danes, galletas bigger than your hand. I picked up the set of silver tongs and started grabbing, not stopping until I had enough pan dulce to require a cake box.
My gluttony was rewarded when I got to the register and learned that each was somehow between $1.50 and $2.10. The pineapple flauta, with gooey fruit filling encased in puffy dough, rang up at $1.55. The massive, twirling, crunchy sugar-coated brocas (that’s “drill bits,” so-called for their shape)? Also just $1.55. “Brocas for your broke ass,” my colleague Jay quipped, tearing into the box of baked goods that looked like I was trying to feed an entire floor of hungry workers rather than two Racket employees.
I was immediately drawn to the ojo de pancha ($2.10—I’m telling you, these prices are wild), with a circle of sweet cake surrounded by sugar-crusted pastry dough. I’m very glad I grabbed one of the galletas grageas ($1.55); those soft and sort of cakey rainbow sprinkle sugar cookies are the kind of thing you could eat every day, just classically delicious. And from the refrigerated case next to the pan dulce, Papà Chuy’s flan ($5.25) is so, so rich and creamy. I saved it for dessert, heroically, but the knowledge that it was nestled inside my fridge tempted me all day long.
My favorite pan dulce, though, was the cubilete de queso or cheesecake cup ($2.10), a squishy, decadent delicacy. The ones from Papá Chuy pull apart in threes kind of like a banana, and the soft and tangy filling has an almost spongy texture that’s a lot of fun to sink your teeth into. Absolutely will be getting again.
If you’re looking to switch more of your shopping to local international grocers, now is a great time to do it. Just don’t forget to grab yourself a little sweet treat from an international baker, too.
Papá Chuy’s Bakery
Address: 2409 Lyndale Ave. S., Minneapolis
Hours: 7 a.m.-8 p.m. daily
