fbpx

Baker Finds Right Recipe for Success

At 3 a.m., when most Orange County residents are halfway through their slumber, Solomon Dueñas leaves Aliso Viejo and begins the 15-minute commute he\'s made nearly every morning since 1988.
[additional-authors]
July 1, 2004

At 3 a.m., when most Orange County residents are halfway through their slumber, Solomon Dueñas leaves Aliso Viejo and begins the 15-minute commute he’s made nearly every morning since 1988.

The 54-year-old arrives at Solomon’s Bakery and immediately relieves the three bakers who have worked through the night producing loaves of rye and challah, trays of delicate cookies and batches of heavily frosted cupcakes. Dueñas ensures that all pending orders for the bakery he owns are complete, then fills out accounting forms through the sunrise, until the first of four vans arrives at 6 a.m.

He helps load the vans that will distribute pastries throughout the county until Solomon’s 5 p.m. closing. But his work is still not done, and Dueñas remains to prep the returning bakers for another long night of work, not leaving until around 8 p.m.

Somewhere between the baking, supervising, manning the counter, visiting clientele at their homes and buying supplies, Dueñas takes a short midafternoon nap.

"I have to recharge the batteries, you know," apologized Dueñas, who always sports a sparkling golden necklace with the Hebrew word chai (life). "But I love working 18-hour days. I’m happy at my work, and happiness keeps me alive one more day. There are no successful men who work part time."

This intense dedication to his work belies the otherwise soft-spoken nature of Dueñas, a Salvadoran Jew who operates one of the county’s few full-fledged Jewish bakeries, which is located in an unremarkable Laguna Hills industrial park. His story is much like that of any successful immigrant’s, marbled with unexpected but fortuitous incidents, sleepless nights and ever-present charm.

He originally immigrated to Los Angeles in 1969, hoping to earn a bachelor’s degree in agricultural science.

"But life’s realities forced me to get a job," Dueñas joked, and he joined the invisible immigrant workforce for a couple of years. One day while visiting the Salvadoran consulate with a visa question, an official suggested that Dueñas enroll in a pastry program at a local college.

It turned out that the consulate knew about the delicious breads Dueñas baked privately for friends. It was a hobby he picked up in El Salvador as a youth, while practicing his Judaism in accordance with Marrano customs, a secretive way of life adopted by Jews who hid their religion under a veneer of Catholicism after the Spanish Inquisition.

Dueñas followed the consulate’s advice and enrolled in a baker’s college as a pastry chef. He soon parlayed the degree he received into a baker’s position at a Los Angeles-area Safeway. Safeway management was so impressed with Dueñas’ creations and attentiveness, that they asked him in 1986 to help open a new branch in Newport Beach.

However, Dueñas had bigger ambitions. Throughout the years, Dueñas studied the mystery of Jewish baking under the legendary Abraham Kaplan of Costa Mesa’s Kaplan’s Deli fame. Finding Orange County "lacking in Jewish food" and with Kaplan’s guidance and blessing, Dueñas opened Solomon’s Bakery in 1988.

"Mr. Kaplan told me that if I wanted to succeed in life, I had to go out on my own," explained Dueñas, his voice dropping in respectful awe. "When I started Solomon’s Bakery, he helped with the baking, design scheme, everything."

"He insisted that I hire his best employee from him," Dueñas continued. "And he helped me find loans that allowed me to open. That’s something I’ll never forget."

Business was tough at first. There wasn’t much to Jewish life in Orange County during the late 1980s — in fact, Dueñas was a founding member of one of South County’s first synagogues, Mission Viejo’s Congregation Eilat. He remembers working 18-hour shifts and sleeping at the bakery during that rough first year and switching shifts with his wife, Sue, at the register and ovens.

But revenue rose exponentially for Dueñas through word of mouth, the development of South County and the arrival of Jews in the area — it’s estimated there are now more than 60,000 throughout Orange County, with a majority south of the 55 Freeway. Solomon’s was their manna in the Sinai that is South County. His staff grew from two to seven, and Dueñas expanded into catering, a full-stocked deli and cake decorations.

Dueñas keeps Solomon’s bustling primarily because of his care for customer and craft alike. Glass displays at Solomon’s are clean, highlighting all the favorites of the Jewish-pastry galaxy — stomach-stuffing babkas, fruity hamantaschen, crumbly rugelah. Even better is a Dueñas original that he calls an apple-raisin bran, a block of caramelized flour so decadent that customers drive in from San Diego and even Washington state just for a sniff.

Dueñas admits to being a workaholic, but he relishes returning home to spend time with his three teenage daughters, each of whom has a sandwich named after her.

"But I better be in bed by 10 every night," Dueñas said. "After all, the alarm goes off at 2:45 a.m."

Solomon’s Bakery is located at 23020 Lake Forest Drive., Suite. 170, Laguna Hills. For more information, call (949) 586-4718.

Did you enjoy this article?
You'll love our roundtable.

Editor's Picks

Latest Articles

When Hatred Spreads

There are approximately 6,000 colleges and universities in America, and almost all of them will hold commencement ceremonies in the next few weeks to honor their graduates.

More news and opinions than at a
Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.