Papa's Bakery open in Campbell

By GRAIG GRAZIOSI

ggraziosi@vindy.com

CAMPBELL

The lines at Papa’s Bakery, 669 McCartney Road, were reliably long from the moment they opened at 8 a.m. Monday until well after 6 p.m.

The name will be familiar for most city residents, doubly so for the city’s Puerto Rican population – the new bakery is a sister shop to Papa’s Puerto Rican Cuisine on 12th Street, both owned and operated by Jeanette and Carmelo Morales.

While the restaurant is known for its well-loved Puerto Rican entrees, the bakery’s star item on its first day was its duo of fresh bread options.

“We sold about 700 pounds of bread today,” Jeanette Morales said. “We’re still filling orders we took earlier today.”

The bakery sells Sobao bread as well as pan de agua – a bread with a firm crust and soft, airy center.

Jeanette said she and a fellow baker traveled to Puerto Rico to train for eight days at a bakery to learn the bread recipes they now use at Papa’s.

While plenty of customers came to order the bread by itself, much of it was sold as part of the bakery’s selection of sandwiches, which includes the shop’s take on the Cubano as well as the Puerto Rican favorite, the Tripleta, which is made with a mixture of steak, pork and chicken.

In addition to the bread and sandwiches, the bakery also has cupcakes, brownies, cookies and limbers (frozen juice treats served in plastic cups).

Jeanette said opening a bakery was a dream she’d had for a decade, but the opportunity to open only recently presented itself.

“I love to bake, and people would often tell me, ‘Oh you should open a bakery,’ because we’d make cakes and cookies for our friends,” she said. “Originally we were going to put the bakery upstairs above the restaurant, but the stairs were too steep, so we waited until we had an ideal location. Once the restaurant was running smoothly and this spot opened, we decided it was time to open.”

The spot was formerly home to a Subway restaurant.

Mayor Nick Phillips was present at the bakery’s grand opening Monday morning, and thanked the Morales family for “blessing the city with their business and believing in Campbell.”

Though restaurants often have huge crowds during their first weeks and sometimes months of operations, Jeanette thinks her clientele will keep walking through the doors for a long time to come.

“Many of our customers here are our regular customers at the restaurant, too. They’ve been looking forward to this, and I don’t think the interest is going to let up,” she said. “Before us, you’d have to drive to Cleveland to get some of the items we’re offering.”

Papa’s Bakery is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday.