Panchitas Bakery
- Price Range: $
- Accepts Credit Cards: No
- Parking: Private Lot
- Attire: Casual
- Good for Groups: Yes
- Good for Kids: Yes
- Takes Reservations: No
- Delivers: No
- Take-out: Yes
- Waiter Service: No
- Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
- Outdoor Seating: No
- Good for: Breakfast, Lunch, Dessert
- Alcohol: None
57 Reviews for Panchitas Bakery
It's simple, basic, affordable Mexican pastry & baked goods. Nothing too complicated, nothing pretentious, self serve, tasty, kid friendly - what more could you possibly want out of such a place. I forgot how much I have enjoyed getting fresh pastries here until yesterday - still great.
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I went to Panchitas after all of the reviews. Since it gets good reviews, I will be a bit more critical.
There was no decaf coffee (the gentleman behind me was disappointed).
I thought that the prices were fair and straightforward. The best part about Panchitas is the freshness of all of the bread. The bake all day with the major times being in the morning and at 3pm.
I love conchas and these conchas were made well. Then I also tried the little sprinkled covered cookies (another favorite of mine, dammit a grown man can like sprinkles). The bread was lightly sweetened and tender. I could tell that this bread would not taste good old.
I went at 9am and the selection was sparse. I was let down when I could not find a puercito (little piggy) on site.
Hijole, this is not the best bread I have tasted. It is one of the better places in San Diego. I almost feel a bit like Vanessa, spoiled by Mexico no SF.
Mm-raw, miff ishf shum goof shmuffmam. Mime shpiffen freefin frumfs awropher, mutff, ifsh ood. Amm, ifs sheef, manm, sheef. Ishf pha-fe if mmm chud bupf...muff'in shawbufs gufmoe mam.
SHHHHHT. -TT.-TT. *gulp* (sigghhh..).
Like I said, man, this place got some good stuff to eat. And its cheap man its cheap! Maybe put Starbucks out of business if they had a better selection of coffee to accompany the fresh (albeit short lived) pastries. That would hit it out of the park.
Careful of getting crumbs all over your carpet and don't forget the bolillos/ telera bread which is my main reason for going. Makes an awesome huevo con queso torta para desayuno.
Panchitas: tiene cafe con leche?
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So, because I don't want any first time customers to walk in looking like newbies, let's break down the basics.
First and foremost, walk in with a empty stomach and prepare to be faced wth gigantic walls of goodies.
Grab one of the metal trays on the left and a tong. I tend to be drawn toward the tong with the green handles, but that is just me. These two tools are essential, as it is unsanitary to grab the food with your bare hands!
Next, you must pick up at least one piece of pan dulce (it's the traditional Mexican sweet bread..looks kind of like a turtle shell). You can find the small sizes along the wall facing the window, and the giant meant-to-be-shared-with-others size along the right side of the wall facing west (the west wall).
This west wall is where all the hidden treasures are. Second shelf from the right, second ledge down, is the home of the little piggy shaped treat. Light in texture but full of flavor, this is definitely a must! Whenever I bring these to share with my coworkers from work, this is the first to dissapear. One little piggy is never enough...
Along one of the last walls, on one of the lower ledges, is a doughy looking piece of cake, brown in color, with a crumbly topping. Grab one of these as well. So good, it's like portable bread pudding.
After you have picked up those three treats, feel free to go to town in this store! Everything I have tried has been great. And don't be afraid to splurge on some of their Mexican hot chocolate.
Yum-o.
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So I finally went to see what all the fuss was about.
I was craving some mex bread and was sadly disappointed to see their selection and quality.
I guess i'm just spoiled. SF has the bessssst mexican bread. This stuff was just sad.
I guess its OK for SD.
It was pretty cheap but then again you get what you pay for.
I tried that watermelon shaped one, it was cute but nothing special.
if i haaaddd to go back and buy something again it would be the big chocolate chip cookie looking thing.
Maybe I just went at a bad time?? They didn't taste fresh.
Every once and awhile my boyfriend surprises me with a lard soaked paper bag that can only mean one thing....PANCHITAS! The pastries here are deeelicious and super cheap (perfect for PMS-induced sugar/ carb binges). I notice that he always picks up one of the breads shaped like a little pig...maybe that's his subtle way of trying to tell me something.....
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"AHHH! SAJDJSJHDAJSD! EEK! OOOO! HAHAHA!"
That was my reaction when I accidentally stumbled upon Panchitas. Having followed this little bakery store on Yelp for quite awhile, I nearly had a heart attack when I took a wrong turn and landed here. I WAS SO HAPPY, you don't even understand.
My friend and I ran into the store, almost tripping over ourselves. We managed to grab the wrong trays, taking the huge long ones that the bakers use, instead of the small round ones for the customers. We opened every clear cabinet and smelled the glory of all these Mexican baked goods. I made my picks ( a pastry with pineapple stuffing, a cinnamon loaf, and an interesting roll of some sort), headed to the counter, and only had to pay ~$2!!!! What a greeeeeat deal. I was in bakers' heaven..
Not to mention, the pastries themselves were deliiiiiiiicious. I think I finished them all within one day.
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I used to live about 300 feet from Panchitas and I love the little tiny sugar cookies that look like giant risotto pieces. I don't know what they're called except that I can only translate my stomach's cry for them "mggrgrmgmrgr".
I'd easily throw down 5 stars for those cookies, the teleras, bolillos, hot chocolate and tres leches cake however the decidedly "unchocolaty" chocolate frostings are something I just can't get past. Added to that the occasional clear snubbing by the cashiers in favor of the people that have 80 things loaded on their tray against someone getting three things who was totally ready before the 80 item guy gets old sometimes but they're usually quick.
I also love the prices because flipping a couch cushion can usually be transformed into tastiness and lots of it. The hours are also great and slightly amusing, they should just stay open 24 hours since they're almost that way already.
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I read all of the reviews or this place and was like... "how good can this be?" F- ing real real good. I got some for people I work with and was pissed I did not keep all the Pan Dulce for myself. I was out like 2.50 and fed a truckload of people delicious or (muy deliciouso) pastries. I don't know if they are all considered Pan Dulce, but I considered all of them awesome. You get a giant aluminum tray and walk around just adding goodness to it. It is so good. Buy an extra one and give it to the bum outside the door.
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I know what your thinking...another 5 star rating for Panchitas. Your right, but this place deserves it. It seriously has a "little Mexico" feel to it. I mean just the other day the woman at the register didn't speak any English, forced me to bust out my elementary Spanish (added excitement!). It's super cheap and really good too, I live basically right next to it and the smell comes in my window...jealous? If you've never been I say you need to come find out what all the fuss is about. Panchita you won me over, spread the word and help out this cool local bakery!
It really sucks living a few houses down from here. I can smell the bread and pastries and cookies and deliciousness at like 7 a.m. and it goes on until 10 p.m.
This is not fair. Everything here is soooo good, and sooooo cheap. Why. Why. Why.
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ok So after reading all the hype of Panchitas I had to go ,as a pastry chef I now I good pastry when I eat one, I normally get my fix of Pan Dulce down south ,but sheez next time "flo " is in town I am there in a heartbeat
I picked a very large cake brownie just by looking at it I new this was going to be delicious ,and one bite I was sweeped away into chocolate bliss with each bite I just couldnt stop but had to ..me teeth hurt
it was great ....but I should have had more walnuts becasue it had only like 3 pcs (small)
I got a small bread that had the signature topping and cruched bits of sugar which was like a little broiche with chunks of sugar I had to hold back I still have 1 more
The large butter bread that has a vanilla custard -this I didnt ,like the custard should be creamy and velvety it was gelatious not great but ok but the bread itself ,well if your like me I would ,make my awesome bread pudding with it (I have recipes)
I am hispanic as as you know in the hispanic culture we use (a lot) of lard (manteca) i can almost tell that they use lard in everything
Lard gives it flavor and moistness to bread and ads structure to others but to my brownie ..nothing but goodness
I am happy on this very hot ,humid day I decided to go to Panchitas because now I am a loyal customer no more South bay for me
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Orejas/palmiers/elephant ears--call them whatever, they are always perfect and my hands-down favorite item, and apparently that of others, too, as they're often sold out (call ahead to order a large amount). The coarse sugar crystals on top add a crunch and just enough sweetness to make them fine for non sweet-toothers like me, and they look beautiful, too. If you want to tart them up, top with lemon curd, or sweeten them with whipped cream. For that matter, you also could probably spread with nut butter. They are the only pastry I buy to bring to friends, and I can't find a better deal than at Panchitas. They are also a great way to wean yourself off of too-sweet stuff.
The bolillos (5/$1 bread rolls) are perfect for tortas, but, as with all white bread, not particularly nutritious though filling and certainly healthier than store-bought white bread as there are no preservatives. I wish they had a crispier exterior, but I buy seeded sourdough from Trader Joes or Bread & Cie for that. (For a lard-laden white flour fix, tortillas from Las Quatro Milpas cannot be beat, period. They are a meal in themselves.)
Keep in mind, virtually all the ingredients in their food is white flour and white sugar (plus lard/shortening)--items we should keep to a minimum or avoid in a healthy diet...that said, if you want to serve tortas and a lovely, simple dessert to a crowd, you can't beat the bolillos and orejas from Panchitas. Add a green salad, roasted and raw veggies and fruit and it is a feast suitable even for vegans.
Also, it's just a short walk from bus stops on the #2 route.
I've shopped at Panchitas for about 40 years and my only complaint is that they don't have some whole wheat bolillos (I no longer buy the bolillos as I shun white flour except for my orejas fix, and an annual LQM tortilla binge).
Good pastries+cookies+ bolillos, great price, and way too close to my house! I think I'll have to sew an elastic waistband into my jeans!
Parking: Limited
Prices: inexpensive
Service: self serve; don't forget to grab a tray and tongs and start loading up!
Panchitas has dynamite pan that is worth its weight in gold.
Having grown up in Northern California, I have a fav place up there, (on Julian St. in San Jose) that my dad used to stop at for me and my brother and sister when he was feeling especially heroic AND us kids were exceptionally good. Panchitas is now that special treat place for my two kids.
You can smell the warm, sweet breads from the intersection at 25th. I love this place! My favorite pan dulce are the piggies. My son loves the donuts with jelly in the middle; the girl child always picks a piece of frosted cake.
I bought two trays worth of sweet, delicious carbs.
I almost ate them all on the way home.
This is madness...
THIS IS PAN DULCE!
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SO DELICIOUS! I went here pretty recently with 2 friends, we got a whole tray of treats and three cups of coffee for a mere $7 and some change. The fruit empanada things are amazing, I had the apple one but I bet they are all delicious. We got a creamy filled delicacy as well that was amazing. I don't think you can really go wrong here, it's like a big party in your mouth!!!
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There's nothing I can say that hasn't been said. When my best girl lived next door we used to get fresh bollilos and make sammiches. The best sammiches ever. Cookies, donuts, fruit empanadas, cake, pan dulce.......Yes please. Yes yes yes.
Pachita's Bakery is the BEST. You can get a quarter sheet cake for 19.99. The cake quality is really good as well.
Everything is fresh and made daily, to order if you ask.
The Dulce de Leche is awesome, donuts, cookies and sweet pastries A + And, cheapest prices I have seen too!!
Get there early for the best selection, this place opens EARLY!!
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awwww.. i love coming here in winter and picking up all the great pan dulce, cookies, etc, and having them with coffee on my patio overlooking Downtown.
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Still on the search for my cheesecakey thingy from the Mexican bakery I made hubby drive to Panchitas. Unfortunately, we got there around 10am on a Saturday and a lot of stuff had sold out already. Well, what do you expect when the bakery opens at 5am!!?!?!?
Anyhoo, we still managed to buy about 7 items -- lil guy wanted a churro and a chocolate chip cookie. I bought 2 of those things the other reviewer mentioned which looks like a part of the female anatomy (I didn't like those, they tasted very meringue-y). The bread pudding looking thing with raisins which hubby picked out (see photo) was absolutely delicious. It looked like it would be super sweet but it wasn't sweet at all. Just pure yummy!! I also got a pastry thing with an egg/cheese filling. I liked the cheese filling but not the egg part. Also got a Mexican roll.
My total? A whopping 4 bucks! I could totally do this again!
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Thanks to the Yelpers that reviews on this Bakery. I have found a new favorite. If your not familiar with the Mexican breads then you need to crawl out from underneath your rock and give this place a try. This by far is one of the best representations of authentic Mexican food. I brought my mom here the very next weekend after i tried it and she was impressed with the quality. Give it a try you won't be disappointed. Eat up.
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my heaven will have one of these panaderias in it! Growing up, every few days my dad would take me to this little bakery (Chaguitos) inPorterville (yes, its in California). The little old man who ran the counter would always give us a random estimate for a giant panfull of bread..."oh..deme tres dolares" he would say with a casual wave of the hand he would always give me an extra piece of pan dulce cause he liked my poppa..;what great memories... its wonderful that I can still get my fix of Pan Dulce now! Its also wonderful that I don't live closer or I would become a hefty girl right quick! :) This place is convenient, quick, and the Pan dulce is fresh, and delicious! oh and the ladies that run it, are awesome!
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Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Panchitas
I always remember as a kid indulging in Mexican pastries every Sunday morning. Had I kept up this tradition Id probably be about 600 lbs, nevertheless once in a while I need a fix. After turning to my trusty yelp friends I was directed to Panchitas, Ive come to the realization long ago, that I have to drive south of the 8 to get some decent Mex flavor.
After turning into this tiny parking lot and entering Panchitas I was seduced by the Aroma. The display is so packed with fresh, fragrant baked goods they can seem a little overwhelming. Its easy to overindulge here my but my favorite is the conchas (seashells). If you don't know a Concha from a Bolillo, Conchas are sweet egg bread, usually colored, white yellow or pink and have a "shell" design embossed in sugar atop a rounded bun. Conchas are chewy, and are great for tearing apart and dunking in coffee. Like most Panaderias its take out only. No tables in here. So load up and take these baby's home and get the grinds perking. Its hard to beat a mountain of oven-hot Mexican pan dulce and a pot of steaming coffee.
Service was fast and friendly, they even put up with "YELP Paparazzi" and let me sneek in the kitchen for a picture ha (see photos).
These treats are very inexpensive so its easy to overload on this stuff . I defiantly overloaded. Note to self: Mexican pastries have no preservatives and little salt, so they do not stay fresh long.
Thank the lawd this place is not within a 20 mile radius of me............................... ENJOY
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The BEST! I love love love their fresh baked goods. There are these one cookies that look like small vagina's and they taste sooooooo good. Perfect. I might have to go today just because I'm thinking about it. If you like Mexican cookies and such go cuz it is great.
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Awesome, super-authentic Mexican bakery. We went crazy here. Everything is extremely good and very fresh. Will be going back often.
In case you're wondering what to do - just have to grab a large pizza-like tray and tongs and serve yourself and then go up to the counter. It's good!
Dios mio.
So much tasty goodness for so little money. I "splurged" and got the hot chocolate to enjoy with my churros, and everything on my tray plus the chocolate came to a grand total of $5.35. The hot chocolate was so worth it---I think I tasted a hint of cinnamon?---it was so good to dunk those churros in.
And the bread. Oh God the bread. Just their regular rolls of bread are the right combo of crusty outside + soft and fluffy inside. Que rico.
I still have a couple goodies left in my Panchitas shopping bag, and based on what I had this morning, I'm already looking forward to breakfast tomorrow.
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A good, unpretencious panaderia. Baja vs mainland? Huh?
This is no different than any of the dozens I've patronized all over Mexico. They have the usual selection of pan dulce, at prices twice what they are in TJ but still cheaper than others here in San Diego. And the quality ain't bad at all. I can't believe I've driven by this place so often without stopping.
Nothing like a fresh-from-the-oven cochinito for breakfast. Beats the hell out of a glazed doughnut.
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So much to choose I can be 400 pounds if it was close to my house!
It's as good as Panaderia La Mejor in Tijuana. I never really ordered a cake by I seen the decorations a few words beautiful!
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I don't even know what I bought, but it was so cheap and so good! Lots to choose from, everything baked fresh (you can see the bakers working on the pastries in the back) and even though it was past noon on a Saturday, there was still a lot of available breads and goodies.
All you need to do is pick up a large tray and tongs, then pick what you want! I saw people with their silver trays loaded.
I bought several items for $3.55.
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DUDE, 5 bollios for only $1!
C'mon how can you not love this place!
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I'm from S. Texas and we have our fair share of panaderias, some being absolutely badass and some just so-so.
Panchita's is good but then again, there are better places out there I'm sure. But don't get me started with a comparison between Tex-Mex and this Baja-Style stuff they have here....lol
Oh yeah, be careful in the parking lot, people get all ballsy getting in and out of spaces, I've seen many hit & runs here.
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Bring 3 bucks and an appetite. Dig.
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I love this bakery! If you were never really into pastries, but would like to see what you were missing out on.. I would highly recommend Panchitas! Its a bakery experience like no other!
They give you an enormous tin tray and tongs to pick out what pastries you'd like to get. More often then I should, I end up putting way too many treats on my plate! Its too tempting not to! Although, I would suggest restraining yourself if your incapable of finishing all the pastries within a day or two. The pastries and bread are made fresh daily, so they tend to have a shorter shelf life (fewer preservatives)! The best part of this bakery, besides their "less than a dollar a piece" cheap prices, are their empanadas that come in a variety of flavors! As far as I know, all are really tasty!
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like everyone else says:
yum
cheap!
the end
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This is how baking gets down. It's really too bad for every other bakery in the area that I found this place, cause now I'm off the market. That's right, Panchitas and I are going steady.
It's a constant battle not to overbuy because it's SO cheap and delicious, but you have to remember that you can only go through so many baked goods in a day and this stuff isn't going to keep because...it isn't full of preservatives so much as it's full of deliciousness.
I haven't tried everything but I've also not found anything that wasn't worth eating or worth the price. So venture safely into pretty much any corner of the bakery universe and don't look back.
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LOVE IT!!!!!!!!! OH HOW I'VE MISSED MY PAN DULCE!
I was born in Mexico but raised in San Diego, and having grown up eating Pan Dulce every evening for 'merianda' with my grandmother in Tijuana, I would always miss it when we would not visit her. I have tried many a sweet bread from various establishments (even Mexican-owned) and never found something that truly took me back to those evenings at my 'Billa's' house dipping them in hot 'Chocolate Abuelita'. This is the real thing.
The prices are very fair...not expensive at all. I visited in the evening and was pleasantly surprised to see that they close until 10pm...great for a late night snack. Will definitely return...in fact, I'm craving it right now.
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I'm generally over-enthused about Mexican fare, but I was disappointed (especially after all the other yelpers' rave reviews) by this bakery.
I'd say it's your average Mexican bakery; there was nothing wrong with it, but it was far from outstanding. The fruit empanada things (I tried guava, mango, and apricot) were filled with artificial-tasting jelly (no real fruit!) and the pumpkin one tasted like it was just filled with plain, canned pumpkin. The dough for them was dense and very eggy. A lot of the other things seemed like just variations of conchas (those round sweet breads with sugar patterns on top) or puff-pastry in different shapes.
The tres leches was delicious. I got something else from the fridge that was really good (I don't know the name) --it was two layers of light, not-too-sweet cake with whipped cream in the middle.
Also, it's nice that it's cheap, but then aren't all Mexican bakeries? I don't think this should be a huge selling point.
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panchita's is great. You can get enough food for 2 days with like 3 dollars. They have awesome breakfast biscuits, good macaroons and a whole crapload of stuff i want to try. I am glad i dont believe in new years resolutions but sad i live in a town considered the fittest in america when i think of this bakery.
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Luckily, I live less than a mile from this place which makes it so convenient for me or anyone looking to get some authentic mexican pastries. Try the pina empanadas! Delicious. Oh, and the prices are great too.
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