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The
Porto’s story began in Manzanillo, Cuba, when Raul’s mother,
Rosa, lost her job as a home economics teacher and began selling
cakes from home. “In Cuba, folks worked at places resembling
work camps and the pay was minimal, so my mother began to
bake and sell cakes and pies in order to help pay the bills.”
Rosa
had a well-established business by the time the family left
Cuba six years later.
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In
the United States, Rosa resumed her home-bakery business. And
her sales picked up where they left off. “Two years later, she
couldn’t do it out of the house anymore. I mean, we would have
15 to 20 cars a day driving up to the house to pick up their
cakes!” laughs Raul. So the family opened a little bakery in
a 300- square foot locale. And thanks to Rosa’s homegrown clientele,
the bakery was busy from day one, serving around 50 customers
per day. |
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Rosa took care of the bakery, Raul’s father, Raul Sr., worked
at Van De Kamps , a big bakery in Los Angeles. “Mom would drop
us off at school and then she would go take care of the store,"
explains Raul, Jr. "After school, my sisters and I would
take the bus back to the bakery and we would stay there the
rest of the day, until 7 or 8 o’clock at night. We would do
our homework at the bakery and also help mom out however we
could. We also spent most of our weekends there helping out.”
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| Although
the business needed the help of Raul and his sisters, Raul’s
parents didn’t allow their kids’ education to suffer. “My parents,
like in most Latino families, always put our education first.
They would remind us constantly that the bakery is only a job
and our education was much more important.” |
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| By
1980, the bakery had really taken off and Raul Sr. quit his
downtown job to work full time with his Rosa. By then, Raul
and his sisters, Betty and Margaret, had already finished high
school and had begun to increase their responsibilities at the
store. “But we kept up with our studies," Raul says. "Betty
has a Masters in Political Science from UCLA, Margaret has a
degree in Accounting from Cal State, and I also have a Business
degree from Cal State.” |
| The
growing business eventually moved to a 2,000- square foot facility
in Glendale. Six years later the business had grown so much
that they had to relocate to a space double the size of the
previous one. “At that point it became a real business and we
had to hire employees. Also, my sisters and I were done with
college so we began to work full time at the bakery. When we
were going to college, we didn’t really think about working
full time at the bakery, but we really enjoyed the business.”
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| Raul
and his sisters’ business skills really paid off, because in 1993
Porto’s Bakery had to relocate to a whopping 20,000-square foot facility!
The
business now employs 60 full-time workers and offers an extensive
line of products. Porto’s also has added a party supply store, but
its biggest attraction are still its cakes, pastries, and house
specialties.
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