French’s Pastry savors 50 years of the sweet life

At French’s Pastry, the baking business is a family affair.

From the late hours to the early morning, Manuel Gonzalez and sons Daniel and Edgar drive around to their four locations across Orange County to make sure baking operations are running smoothly.

The three start at the original location in Costa Mesa off Baker Street around midnight and then separate and head to the shops in Mission Viejo, Orange and Irvine, completing their rounds by 9 a.m.

After the baking is done and the shops are ready to open, Mariana Gonzalez, Manuel’s daughter, prepares to greet customers. As the manager, she spends time at each store and handles the day-to-day operations with a team of about 45 people, including bakers and cashiers.

The bakery — named after the original owner and not to be confused with French’s Cupcake Bakery off 17th Street in Costa Mesa — is celebrating its 50th birthday this year.

The Gonzalez family purchased the business in 1990 from owner Frank French, who wanted to retire after leading the business since 1965.

“We took over everything that he started,” Mariana, 41, said of French, who died about a decade ago. “We kept his same recipes. Everything that helped establish French’s, we kept those traditions going. We even kept his old desk and chair.”

When French owned the business, only the Costa Mesa location existed. In 1992, the bakery expanded to Irvine, after a request for a traditional bakery from the city, which helped pay for the expansion. The Mission Viejo and Orange locations followed in 1996 and 2005, respectively.

Mariana said the company, which has on-site bakeries at each location, has stayed loyal to French’s traditional recipes for breads, cakes and wagon wheels — similar to a Danish pastry but circular like a pizza, with a diameter of about 12 inches.

French’s also takes special orders for weddings, birthdays and baby showers.

Tuesdays are dubbed Cupcake Tuesdays, when the bakery sells various cupcakes for $1 each, about half off. Each store sells about 1,200 cupcakes in a single Tuesday, Mariana said.

The holiday season is extremely busy, she said, adding that the bakers need at least 12 additional hours during a holiday week to complete special orders and fill the shelves.

The bakery uses only house-made whipped cream and butter cream and no fondant. Labels and receipts for distributors are handwritten, giving the items an authentic, homey feel.

“There aren’t that many traditional bakeries around anymore,” Mariana Gonzalez said. “Either you’re a cupcake bakery or you’re a bread bakery or plain cakes. But to have everything, there aren’t that many. That’s basically what stands out. We’re the neighborhood bakery that’s been around with old-fashioned recipes.”

Mariana says this sticking with tradition is the key to the company’s success. The family hopes to open even more bakeries — perhaps in San Clemente and other cities — and have full-fledged cafes offering breakfast and lunch at all locations. But bakeries are often challenged by large companies, like Costco, she added.

“They bake so much but they don’t have the overhead, like rent and salaries, that we have,” she said. “We have to add all that stuff. I tell our employees, for our customers to get ready and leave their house for two muffins in the morning, those are the ones we have to cherish. People can go to Costco and get a whole week’s worth. But they choose to come here.”

She compared the business to the bar from “Cheers,” the TV show of the 1980s and early ‘90s where everyone seemed to know each other and many customers were regulars.

Mariana noted that the same women can be seen stopping by the Costa Mesa location to get their children a treat after their scheduled doctor appointments at Hoag Health Center next door.

The bakery has also won celebrity clients like rock star Gene Simmons of the band KISS, who commissioned French’s to design his birthday cake this year. The result was a 3D-like sculpture of his head, including his token long tongue, completely made of cake and butter cream, she said.

After 25 years in the business, Mariana said she couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

“I remember our father sitting us down when we were younger and telling us we don’t have to work at the bakery,” she said. “The more I saw this and did this, I realized I liked it too. It was the same for my brothers. My father encouraged us, but we also couldn’t do this without our crew. There’s no way I could bake and sell everything on my own.

“Twenty-five years ago, I would not have imagined the bakery would have grown this much. We hope Frank is proud too.”