The Biz Beat: Popular San Jose Mexican bakery opens 4th location

The October opening of Panapolis Bakery No. 4 in San Jose was perfunctory. Owner Aldo Ortiz had a photo taken with his family under a balloon arch, then thanked the crowd for its patience and cut the ceremonial red ribbon.

There was no time for the scheduled remarks from District 2 Councilmember Pamela Campos or Consul General of México Neftali Said Pérez González — customers had started forming a line an hour earlier, and it already stretched a block and a half.

“I am thinking it’s going to be as great as the others,” resident Sal Jones told San José Spotlight as he waited in line. “I’ll go in there, see something and think, ‘Yeah, my stomach’s talking to me. My eyes are telling me to go for that.’ I’ll worry about the diet later.”

Within 90 minutes, the cases were empty. It was another milestone in a career that began almost by chance.

Ortiz is a third-generation baker, but before he came to America in 2012 at age 16, he repaired shoes for his cobbler mother. Even then, he tried a succession of jobs from landscaping to warehouse work before getting a job in 2015 with his uncle at Panaderia Ortiz in Morgan Hill.

“That was my first time baking,” Ortiz said. “Out of necessity. My uncle said he didn’t have any baking jobs, but I could be an extra in the front house. When I met the bakers, they asked me if I wanted to learn. I said yes.”

Three weeks later, a baker quit and Ortiz stepped into the job, finding himself in charge of the panaderia’s entire production.

“It was really hard,” Ortiz said. “I was still a teen. I wanted to quit so many times every day. I was thinking, ‘Why am I here?’ I just kept going.”

After finding a passion for the job, he started asking his uncle for better ingredients and increased the size of all the goods. Within a year, the bakery went from selling 500 items a day to 3,000.

“I liked when people told me my bread was really good,” Ortiz said. “That inspired me to make it better all the time. And I always had it on time. When we opened at 5 a.m., we had 50 of our 60 breads ready to sell. By 6 a.m., we had everything.”

Ortiz briefly returned to Mexico in 2018 and opened the first Panapolis in Michoacán. He returned to the U.S. in 2020 with $5,000 and a son three weeks from birth. He worked 16 to 19 hours per day across four bakeries owned by four different uncles for four months to raise capital.

“I bought a van,” he said. “I thought, ‘If it works, it works.’ My dad came to help me out, and when I opened it, business was bad. I didn’t know where to park or sell. I went to Target and to some apartments. I was making videos, and people started following me little by little.”

A few of those videos hit big, including one with 9 million views. Ortiz went from selling less than $200 of baked goods a day —barely making what he spent on ingredients — to jumping to more than $1,000 a day.

“That’s when all the blessings started,” he said.

Ortiz had rented kitchen space from an uncle’s business, the Ortiz Bakery, to bake for his van. When his uncle sold the building in 2023, the new owner resold it directly to Aldo.

In the case of Panapolis No. 1, the building had already been a bakery, so the transition was relatively easy. But it took Ortiz a month in late 2025 to turn a former Chinese restaurant into Panapolis No. 2.

“That was the scary one, because I didn’t know anything about permits or anything,” Ortiz said. “I worked 15 hours a day with one helper. I didn’t have much money, so I couldn’t pay anyone. I had to do it myself or wait more time to open it.”

Another converted restaurant space became Panapolis No. 3 in July of this year. The new bakery was originally a Taco Bell-turned-ramen restaurant, and Ortiz said he advertised it by handing out 5,000 fliers.

“I was expecting a lot of people,” he said, “but not that many. That line didn’t finish for three hours. We sold out four times. I emptied two of my other bakeries to bring everything here. We didn’t have any bread left.”

District 2 Councilmember Campos swept into location No. 4 on opening day with an early wave of customers. She said she was eyeing the elote pan dulce and looked forward to trying the conchas, too.

“Having Panapolis choose their fourth location in District 2 has me excited,” she told San José Spotlight. “ I have so many childhood memories of panaderias like this. As a resident, we need more diverse bakeries and local small businesses to support. I know I will be visiting this business a lot.”

The speed at which enthusiastic customers empty the display cases contrasts sharply with the time and effort it takes to keep them filled every day. Panapolis opens at 4 a.m., closes at 9 p.m and after a short break, production begins again an hour later.

“Most of the day, we work 14 to 15 hours,” Ortiz said. “We are making around 40 or 50 different pieces for our customers, and we sell 4,000 or 5,000 items a day.”

Despite the grind, Ortiz’s enthusiasm for the business is, one could say, baked in.

“I like everything about doing this,” he told San José Spotlight. “I also love the stress. Many people can’t handle it, and I handle it really well. My plan is to keep working hard and open more bakeries here. I would like to have 100 bakeries here in California in five years. That’s my dream.”

Contact Robert Eliason at [email protected].

Editor’s Note: The Biz Beat is a series highlighting local small businesses and restaurants in Silicon Valley. Know a business you’d like to see featured? Let us know at [email protected].