Texas Avenue is growing and developing around De La Garza Bakery and Cake Shop on Texas Avenue in Mercedes.

A new McDonald’s restaurant has been open for about a year and is located next door to the long-standing panaderia in Mercedes. The city’s H-E-B grocery store is across the street on Texas and is always active with shoppers. Insurance offices and other small shops are springing up as well on Mercedes’ main north/south corridor. De La Garza Bakery is in its 24^th year of business and has some new wrinkles of its own.

A signage improvement program being provided by the Mercedes Economic Development Corporation led to an attractive exterior facelift for one of the city’s mainstay small businesses. Bright blue letters against a white background say, “De La Garza Bakery & More,” with a new white oval above it displaying the business’s logo that features a flamingo.

The bakery spent $5000 for the signage upgrade, which includes night lighting of the business’s name for the first time in its history. The EDC program reimbursed $4500 of that amount. The bakery’s owners – Albaro and Nora De La Garza – are appreciative of the support given by the EDC and efforts to help small business owners in Mercedes.

“The city has been outstanding,” Albaro said as his wife nodded in agreement. “We weren’t expecting it and are very grateful with everything being so expensive. It (improved signage) turned out really well.”

‘Todo Nuevo’

The De La Garzas immigrated from Mexico to the Rio Grande Valley over two decades and had no background in the bakery business.

Albaro worked as a mechanic. Nora was a nurse. Their American dream was to own and operate their own business. A panaderia is a business that struck their fancy even if they knew nothing about the challenges of making Mexican-styled sweet bread. They liked Mercedes for its middle-of-the-Valley location and because it seemed like a tranquil community with friendly people.

They moved into their present business location of 230 N. Texas in 2000 occupying what had been a recently vacant building. The De La Garzas have stayed put all of these years, expanding in buying next-door space and developing a parking lot for their business. They have also learned the art of baking Mexican pastries and cakes. The couple started out by hiring an old-school baker who stayed with the De La Garzas until teaching them everything he knew.

Now, all of these years later, they have become proficient bakers in their own right. They detail a typical workday that begins at 3 a.m. as the couple and their bakers start out to make fresh bread. The company’s motto is displayed in a big sign above the cash register and says, “Pan Dulce Hecho Fresco Diario.” It means there is no leftover/next day sweet bread sold at De La Garza’s. Each day brings a new batch of fresh pan dulce, with an effort made to bake just enough to satisfy that day’s business.

“Todo nuevo,” Nora says of the fresh bread made available daily at De La Garza’s.

‘It’s An Art’

The De La Garzas were innovators years ago in coming up with their “pan chiquitos.”

They are miniature versions of pan dulce classics like empanadas, conchas, along with mini-donuts and cookies. Making the smaller versions of pan dulce started when the couple’s now-grown children were kids and often didn’t finish a full-size empanada or concha. What started as kid-sized sweet bread became popular with adults. The grown-ups discovered that the smaller versions were perfect to accompany an afternoon coffee, or perhaps could serve as delicious finger food at office gatherings and parties.

“It was something different for those times,” Albaro said. “Other bakeries in the Valley have copied us, but we have the pride in knowing we were the first to do them here.”

The De La Garzas pride themselves on not only having fresh bread daily but also not cutting corners on ingredients. All pan dulce, Albaro said, has essentially the same ingredients. The key to making great sweet bread is having the right amounts of each ingredient to provide the texture and flavors of Mexican bread. Too much flour leads to overly thick pastries, for example, or cutting back on eggs and butter makes for bland-tasting pan dulce.

“The batter is something beautiful to work with,” Albaro said of meshing all of the ingredients together to make great pan dulce. “It’s an art.”

And now thanks to the support of the Mercedes EDC, the artful work made daily at De La Garza’s with its varieties of pan dulce is better highlighted with new and improved signage touting the sweet bread found on Texas Avenue. Call the EDC staff at 956-565-2230 for more information about the signage program, with its offices located at 320 S. Ohio in Mercedes.

• Ric Cavazos