4 days ago
A Game-Changing Mexican Bakery Is Setting Up Shop in New England
New York's loss is Vermont's gain: East Harlem bakery Atla's Conchas closed up its Manhattan location in June, but co-owners and married couple Mauricio Lopez Martinez and Caroline Anders are planning to relocate their business to Montpelier, Vermont, ideally in August.
The Oaxacan-style micro-bakery focused on conchas, Mexican pan dulces of round sweet breads topped with sweet, often colorful crusts. They led the New York wave, over the past year, of Latinx bakeries remixing the classic baked good — joined by others like Masa Madre, in Sunnyside, which subsequently opened. Atla's were made using recipes from Martinez's family, incorporating full-inclusion flour (whole wheat that isn't sifted) and ingredients from local and Latin American farmers and growers. This led to traditional flavors such as vanilla and chocolate, alongside specials like wild blueberry-lavender, arroz con leche, hibiscus lime, and cranberry. Infatuation describes the conchas as 'delicate, mid-size pan dulce, with muted pastel crusts and soft, almost-fluffy interiors.'
Atla's didn't just offer conchas. They served small batches of other baked goods such as babka, cakes, and huaraches. Grubstreet called the Mexican wedding cookies a 'sleeper hit.' They also often fundraised for social causes like Bake for Ukraine and LGBTQIA+ issues.
Martinez and Anders met while working as bread makers at a North Carolina co-op Weaver Street Market. They left to move to New York to open their bakery, which debuted in 2024.
Despite media attention and a local following, Atla's last NYC day at 347 East 109th Street was on Sunday, June 22. The couple announced the shutter on Instagram last week, where they explained why they felt they had no option but to close and move out of state.
'We've come close to a deal more than once, but with a larger footprint and a higher electrical capacity comes a much higher monthly rent,' they explained on Instagram. 'Instead of being liberated to grow in the ways we would want to, we would be forced to grow in every way to pay the bills.'
In their tiny Manhattan space, they milled their flour while only having a small convection oven. But a year into their operations, they realized they had outgrown the storefront and its electrical limitations. They wanted to be able to mill more flour (which they also sold wholesale to individuals) and broaden the breadth of quantity and styles of pastries offered. 'As much as we love full-inclusion baking, and baking conchas of course, we missed baking on stone,' Anders writes to Eater over email. They tried securing a location in New York, but that was impossible without losing sight of elements of their passion they didn't want to compromise on. Hence, Vermont.
Anders explains that the couple was approached with an opportunity in Vermont. They visited a couple of times to see how they felt about the area. 'The food scene is incredible, and there's a major focus on local and sustainable agriculture,' she writes. 'The mountains and rivers are unreal. We haven't seen any moose yet, but we hope to see some soon! And of course, we like that it's close to NYC.'
The Vermont Atla's will be larger with more capacity for a flour mill and a deck oven (with more electricity load). But most importantly, 'a financial situation where we can still be leaders involved in every step of daily production,' she writes to Eater. Conchas will be on the menu, naturally, along with other baked goods like cookies and snacking cakes. They're excited about finally being able to expand with leaves like baguettes, boules, and miche. 'Full-inclusion is a bit more common with hearth breads, but it's still quite rare,' she writes. 'It will be a bit of a challenge for us, but we're so excited to get our hands in the dough, so to speak.
Leaving New York won't be easy, though. 'It feels very bittersweet,' Anders writes. 'We knew our current bakery wouldn't be our forever bakery, but we never expected we'd be moving on so soon.' During the last day of service, conchas went like hotcakes. Which is to say, if selling out showed how the neighborhood would miss them, Vermont is in for a (sweet) treat. See More:
