Masa Madre storefront. Photo: Shane O’Brien
Oct. 15, 2024 By Shane O’Brien
A new bakery specializing in Mexican and Latin American baked goods and breads has opened its doors on the Sunnyside/Woodside border after a four-year journey.
Masa Madre, part of the de Mole family, officially opened at 47-55 46th St. last Wednesday, Oct. 9, after a number of delays at the location.
The launch of Masa Madre has been a long time coming for owner Jose Luis Flores, whose sister Mireya operates de Mole’s Woodside location alongside her husband Ramiro Mendez.
Flores, who opened a de Mole location in Williamsburg in 2018, acquired the space for the bakery at the peak of COVID-19.
However, Flores has spent his professional life working as a pastry chef and soon set about converting the space into a new bakery, building many of the fixtures in the store by hand.
Flores has fastidiously studied baking since coming to the US as an 18-year-old and landing a job as a dishwasher in a Midtown restaurant.
He learned from chefs at the restaurant before landing a job as a pastry chef at Patria, a now-closed three-star restaurant owned by renowned chef Douglas Rodriguez.
Years later, he became a corporate chef for Richard Sandoval, another renowned chef and a global pioneer of contemporary Latin cuisine.
He eventually returned to Queens and joined the de Mole family, setting him on a path to opening his own bakery.
Flores, however, said the project was plagued by delays from the beginning, causing some family members to raise doubts about the feasibility of opening Masa Madre.
“At one point, they were like, ‘just give up,'” Flores said. “But I wasn’t going to give up on something that I worked for, not just for years. It’s been a dream for 20 years.”
Flores finally threw open the doors of Masa Madre last Wednesday, realizing a dream that has been at least 20 years in the making.
He said the delays, which included the installation of a new gas line, have been a blessing in some ways, allowing him to perfect his sourdough yeast, which he has been developing over the past four years.
It has also given him time to develop and explore new recipes. Last year, he traveled to the mountains of Guatemala to study how his wife’s aunt makes a certain type of Guatemalan bread.
Masa Madre (literally meaning mother dough) boasts a collection of Latin-inspired baked goods, including conchas, a traditional Mexican sweetbread roll, pan de queso, a traditional Colombian roll, and traditional Guatemalan bread. It also features a variety of typical baked goods, such as croissants, that are all made using Flores’s own sourdough yeast.
Photo: Shane O’Brien
Meanwhile, Flores will also be serving a variety of sweet and savory pastries at the bakery, including tamales, a traditional savory pastry served with various fillings.
Finally opening in Woodside has been a source of relief and joy for Flores, who said he has been overwhelmed by the response of the local community.
The bakery opened just in time for the annual Taste of Sunnyside restaurant crawl, allowing members of the local community to sample some of the baked goods on offer and Flores said the response was so positive that it almost moved him to tears.
“I never expected to see the happiness of people coming in and welcoming us with open arms,” Flores said. “I told my wife that I just wanted to cry.”
“They came in and said, ‘We needed something like this’.”
Flores said locals told him the neighborhood lacked a bakery and that he had filled a huge gap in the local market.
However, he said he was just following his dream and had not opened the bakery after spotting a lack of competition in the area.
“This is my dream,” he said. “I just wanted to open my bakery and not to see any competition. It’s just something that I wanted to do.”
Flores said opening the bakery later in his career has allowed him to feel more relaxed, although he said he now starts his day at 3:30 a.m. to prepare for the morning rush.
In keeping with the familial connection of de Mole, Flores’s wife is now running the Williamsburg restaurant while he gets the bakery up and running.
Photo: Shane O’Brien
Featured Events
