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It could be argued that no business in San Juan Bautista’s Third Street District lives and breathes the town’s history more than the San Juan Bakery. Constructed in 1860, it was San Juan’s first brick building, which gave it an architectural plus that protected it during the 1869 fire that destroyed an entire downtown block.
The iconic brick oven was installed in 1938 when the store was converted into a bakery. The outside of the oven still has the maker’s stamp in concrete amidst the bricks: “Paul Metz / 5-1938 / Oakland, CAL.”
“We still have people coming who remember their grandparents bringing them here,” owner Dianne Hampton said. “We hear the good stories from them, and they want to go in the kitchen to look at the oven, to see if it is the same as they remember.”
It is not much to look at—just a massive, no-frills brick box insulated by sand and seated within another brick box. Besides the heavy cast-iron doors and the dampers, the only moving part is an external gas jet resembling the nozzle on a fire hose.
When lit in the afternoon, the jet blows flames against three areas of the interior walls in succession until the temperature inside reaches around 350 degrees. The door is closed, and the oven is left overnight to allow the heat to distribute evenly.
As simple as it is, preparing it for baking still requires concentration and care. One wrong move with the blower can cause instant disaster.
“If you grab it in the wrong place,” Hampton said, “It will take the skin off your hands. And if you light it at the wrong time and gas has built up, it will take your eyebrows off.”
At 74, Hampton is still a very active owner and baker. When her son, Jesse Hampton, can’t make the first shift at 6 a.m., Dianne does it. And she still makes everything from scratch, from a scrapbook of recipes handed down to her by the original owners when she bought the bakery in 2012.
“We want people to remember we don’t use preservatives,” Hampton said. “We don’t use artificial flavors and colors. It’s what makes our bread excellent, our cookies yummy, and our doughnuts amazing.”
Still, the quality of her goods, the memories of generations of customers and the durability of the brick oven might not be enough to overcome the lack of tourists and the city’s current economic state. The same problems every food business suffers from, from rising inventory and labor costs to fewer daily customers, are seriously impacting the business.
In short, the bakery is struggling, as it has been since the early days of the pandemic when it was frequently closed due to illness and mechanical difficulties that led to costly repairs.
“You have to sell a lot of donuts to pay your crew,” she said. “We’re not talking $7 an hour in wages anymore, but closer to $17 to $20. And our distributors are cutting back on terms. So, when it used to be 14 days, now it’s 7. And if your credit was $6,000, now it’s $2,000.”
Hampton said that even the sources of her ingredients are falling on hard times and have become less reliable.
“They are losing many customers who are going out of business,” she said. “So it’s like this trickle-down thing. In the end, we all lose, because if our vendors don’t want to accommodate us, we’re unable to get what we need to stay open.”
Hampton said that small price hikes almost weekly and some ingredients have more than doubled over the years.
“We’ve seen prices go up on buckets of everything we use,” she said, “like icings and fruits. Yeast has gone up from $24 for 20 pounds to almost $50. The price of 50 pound bags of flour is just crazy. And I can’t charge $5 for a doughnut.”
Throughout it all, Hampton is persevering, adjusting what she has on her menu and recalculating how much of anything she makes—a critical consideration since she has to discard any baked goods she does not sell.
“For example,” she said, “we don’t make pies anymore except to special order. Sometimes they sell, sometimes they don’t and to toss a pie—that’s painful to me. It’s just so painful.”
Over the last few weeks, she has been revamping the bakery team, bringing in a couple of new people, and experimenting with some new bread recipes that will be initially available on weekends to see if they catch on.
“We already have garlic cheese and jalapeno cheese breads,” Hampton said. “So we are trying out rosemary garlic French rolls and pesto garlic cheese breads. We’ll have them on Saturday and Sunday in the early morning and, of course, they can be special ordered.”
The pesto version is an instant favorite, with a vibrant basil flavor that makes it a great accompaniment to classic Italian dishes. As is true of the other breads, especially the jalapeno cheese bread, it also makes for a great sandwich bread.
“The cheese in the bread makes a very nice soft consistency,” she aid, and more substantial than just bread. Okay. Yeah, because the cheese is throughout the bread. And they’re very flavorful, you’ll find out, you know, people like it with barbecue or something really simple, egg salad, turkey. They’re delicious, they really are. Beautiful.
There have been some things dropped from the menu, like the sourdough french bread which has been a San Juan staple since Adolphe Vache introduced it to the area in 1850, a year after Boudin’s in San Francisco began baking it. Hampton said she gave up on the bread when the seven or so loaves she baked daily went unsold.
But she is not abandoning the fruit turnovers, which are still the bakery’s number one seller, or the blueberry doughnuts, which are my absolute favorite; a truly epic blast of blueberry flavor and a perfectly sweet treat. (My raving about them encouraged Mark C. Anderson to try a sample for a “Found Treasure” article in Edible Monterey.)
Through it all, Hampton remains optimistic that the town, which goes through periodic downturns only to spring back, will soon be back on its feet as the business community and city works together.
“We all want the same thing,” she said. “We want to thrive, and we want to survive. I don’t know what the answer is, and things are difficult, but we’re all trying to figure it out.”
San Juan Bakery
319 Third Street, San Juan Bautista
Recommendations for future Eat, Drink, Savor articles can be emailed to roberteliason@benitolink.com.
BenitoLink thanks our underwriters, Hollister Super and Windmill Market, for helping to expand the Eat, Drink, Savor series and give our readers the stories that interest them. Hollister Super (two stores in Hollister) and Windmill Market (in San Juan Bautista) support reporting on the inspired and creative people behind the many delicious food and drink products made in San Benito County. All editorial decisions are made by BenitoLink.
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