Durango Bakery

Often times a panaderia in the neighborhood can help supply Rosa J.‘s lunch at work. For $ 2.24, I was able to purchase two (2) conchas and one (1) other type of pan dolce (sorry, didn’t capture the name).
However, I felt that their competitor, Taximaroa, on the corner of Pulaski and Lawrence, offers more varieties and better values. I normally patronize Taximaroa since the #81 (Lawrence) bus stop is literally feet away from the panaderia. Well, I will stick with «my first love» from now on.
I believe Durango accepts cash only, but I always pay with my change and rarely do I use any green bucks to pay for my bread.
While Durango isn’t going to be my «preferred» panaderia, I will pop in, get a concha, and munch it on the road as I’m heading over to CTA Kimball Brown Line station.

While it’s not as large as Marcello’s, nor open 24 hours, Durango is still open plenty early/​late and is an excellent alternative when you want cake or chocolate pastries.
In the morning, I’m partial to their chocolate covered donuts — the pastry is sooo soft and the chocolate icing on the verge of gooey soon after being baked. Plus enjoyable conversation can often be had with the older gentleman who is often in the shop at that time. He might be the owner because he is never actually serving customers, but he is always nice to chat with while you are making selections.
In the evening, I sometimes stop for a piece of cake. They have a variety — traditional tres leches, chocolate, mocha, etc. I like all I’ve tried so far, though the chocolate is so intense that eating very small portions or adding a scoop of vanilla ice cream is advised. I love that they add fruit on top of all of them.
I like their cake so much that I purchased one for my birthday. I pre-​ordered a chocolate cake with only strawberries on top (instead of a mix of strawberries and peaches) and the words «Happy Birthday» written on it. A deal for only $ 30! They got the strawberry part right, but gave me a tres-​leches cake instead with no writing. I didn’t complain or take it back because the both types of cake are equally good, and I didn’t really care about the missing message, but they still need to pay closer attention to their orders in case this is ever a bigger issue for anyone. I had a copy of the order, and it was written correctly — so they just didn’t follow it. If you pre-​order a cake, make sure you receive what you order!

Super cheap mounds and mounds of Mexican baked goods including cookies, bread, cakes, and GIANT donuts. I usually go in the evening after work and the woman that is there is always very nice and the pastries are still fresh. They serve giant cups of coffee in the morning. Try it!

A small blink and you miss it hole in the wall near the corner of Central Park and Lawrence Aves. We got chocolate and vanilla concha bread for $ 0.50 each. They were good. And there was a very funny older gentleman there who explained what everything was to us. It was good stuff. And way cheaper than any pastry you could buy at the Starbucks down the street. Little stores like this are part of the charm of Albany Park.

Nothing to write home about. I went here after getting sick of standing in line at Markellos for 30 minutes. Hard to figure out what anything is or what anything costs since nothing is labeled in English. Grabbed a random selection of breads and pastries hoping for the best. Nothing really stood out and the donuts in particular were not good at all. I think the neighborhood could easily live without one (or four) of these bakeries that seem to be everywhere, I really don’t understand how they stay in business. Here’s a wild hint: how about just one of these places realizing that English speakers that don’t know much Spanish would be more likely to frequent their businesses if their signs and staff were bilingual. Nah, that would make too much sense.
Note that parking is usually a crapshoot as is usually the case in this ‘hood.

This small neighborhood Mexican bakery is just one of many in Albany Park. But I’m always willing to check out local, independent businesses. Support them now, because as the neighborhood develops (new condos, Starbucks, etc.), you may not see places like this in a few years.
The bakery offers several types of pan dulce — such as conchas, cuernitos, pan dulce sugar, mantecado, orejas, and much more. This is the type of sweet bread you want to dunk in hot chocolate or coffee for breakfast. They also have fresh baked bread (bolillos, pan de Michoacan, etc.), donuts, flan, and tres leches cake.
No matter which bakery I go to, I always order the tres leches cake. It’s definitely one of my favorite cakes of all time, and it’s my way of gaging how good a bakery is by their version of it. Durango’s tres leches is available whole (around $ 25) or in slices. I ordered a slice of strawberry-​topped tres leches cake. It was pretty good! Not too dense, with the perfect amount of «leche», and although the whipped cream tasted like whipped topping (that’s fine), I would happily go back to the bakery for more.
They also do special occasion cakes, for birthdays, baptism, graduation, etc. Despite the fact that they are located fairly close to Markellos Bakery, they do have a steady stream of customers in the morning.
Edit ¹⁰⁄₂₃ — I purchased a couple slices of their tres leches cake and they were layered with pastry cream. I’ve never had pastry cream in tres leches cake, but it was good! Honestly, I’m not sure if this was a one-​day thing or if it’s permanent. No complaints from me, though.