![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/eltecolote.org\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/La-Reyna_8835_web.jpeg?resize=900%2C1200&quality=89&ssl=1\")
Last month, La Reyna celebrated its 46th anniversary, a triumph against the gentrification that has caused many businesses in the corridor to shutter their doors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the \u201870s, 24th Street was home to numerous Mexican bakeries, much like La Reyna, including the one owned by Gutierrez\u2019s aunt \u2014 Dominguez Bakery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But today La Reyna is one of the few standing in the neighborhood. Dominguez Bakery, which was one of San Francisco\u2019s oldest, closed in 2014. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 46-year success of La Reyna Bakery is largely due to the fact that Gutierrez\u2019s family owns the building. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy sister is the owner, my mom left it to my sister and my brother-in-law works here. He’s the head baker, and I work here with my sister,\u201d said Gutierrez. \u201cA regular day is just my sister opening up, we\u2019re more relaxed than my mom and dad. They were like gung ho 24\/7. She\u2019ll open up at 10 a.m., and I\u2019ll come in to close at 4 p.m.,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Family ownership of the building helped keep the business afloat through wave after wave of neighborhood gentrification, and through the COVID-19 pandemic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere was always commerce and always movement on the street. Now those businesses, when gentrification hit \u2014 gone. The ones that stayed were probably the ones that owned the building because other than that, it would be hard. Rent, for example, next door, went up from $3,000 or $4,000 thousand to $8,000,\u201d said Gutierrez. \u201cSo questions like that came up, who can stay and who can\u2019t stay? And those of us who were owners stayed.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Remaining in the neighborhood meant La Reyna witnessed change happening around it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere were no real kids walking down [the street] in soccer uniforms. I didn\u2019t hear the banging of basketballs in the street anymore,\u201d said Gutierrez.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But recently, Gutierrez noticed a change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI just saw about a week ago, two families over here that have kids. They were in here at the same time and that hasn\u2019t happened, that I\u2019ve seen, in over 30 years; where a family with kids from across the street will come in and buy bread and then go back home,\u201d said Gutierrez. \u201cAnd before gentrification, that was how it was.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Gutierrez thinks the recent addition of low-income housing in the Mission District has a part to play in bringing kids back to the neighborhood. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And although La Reyna has remained through the years, it too has changed. Gutierrez and his family would take trips to San Diego, where Gutierrez was born, and bring items back to sell. Everything from pi\u00f1atas and pigs feet to tortillas and milk. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat was the hustle that my mom and dad did,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But La Reyna wasn\u2019t just a place to buy pantry staples. \u201cMy dad would put machines in here like Donkey Kong \u2026 and Pacman. Even during the Saturday Night Fever craze, my dad put a jukebox in with Saturday Night Fever songs,\u201d said Gutierrez. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, the bakery is more simple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMy sister, her hustle is different, she likes just bread,\u201d said Gutierrez. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Shelf-stable goods like traditional pan dulce and low overhead costs have also kept La Reyna running. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s one of the reasons we\u2019re still here,\u201d said Gutierrez. \u201cWe don\u2019t charge a lot. We\u2019re not trying to get rich off our customers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And the question of \u2018why not charge extra?\u2019 has come up before. But that isn\u2019t how La Reyna has ever operated. \u201cThat isn\u2019t our customers. Our customers are not going to pay extra money, and the customers who do pay extra money, they don\u2019t buy our bread. So, we\u2019d lose our customers,\u201d said Gutierrez. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After all, La Reyna has been a Mission staple for 46 years because customers keep coming back, and Gutierrez\u2019s work is honest. \u201cI think it\u2019s that we grew up here as a family and you know, literally the customers are our friends. During gentrification, your community got smaller so you had to communicate with even people you didn\u2019t think were friends,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLike my mom said, we\u2019re not ever going to get rich. You\u2019re not ever going to have what you want, but you\u2019re going to have what you need,\u201d said Gutierrez. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A family-run bakery that treats customers as friends \u2014 that might just be the true recipe for success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The sights and sounds that once defined San Francisco\u2019s Mission District five decades ago are hardly recognizable these days. Gentrification can do that to any vibrant and bustling neighborhood. But look \u2014 or smell \u2014 closely, and some relics of a bygone era remain. The Mission\u2019s long-standing La Reyna Bakery began baking its pan dulce […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":57293,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"behind","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3929],"tags":[765,24343,2179,24341,24345],"coauthors":[24192],"class_list":["post-57290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en","tag-24th-street","tag-bakery","tag-gentrification","tag-la-reyna","tag-panaderia-2","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/eltecolote.org\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/La-Reyna_8861_web.jpeg?resize=1000%2C750&quality=89&ssl=1\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/eltecolote.org\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/La-Reyna_8851_web.jpeg?resize=750%2C1000&quality=89&ssl=1\")