Artesano Bakery Brings a Family's Mexican Baking Tradition to Jonestown Road

A new bakery on Winston-Salem's west side is drawing on a family baking tradition that its owners trace back more than 80 years and across two countries. Artesano Bakery is now open at 329 Jonestown Road, with trays of Mexican sweet bread, crusty rolls, cakes and coffee drinks. The opening was noted this week by both the Triad Business Journal, which listed it among a handful of new Winston-Salem restaurants, and The Go-To Winston-Salem, which reports that the shop is run by Jessica and Rey Hurtado.

A family story that starts in Michoacán

According to the bakery's own history page, the family's baking roots go back to Tacámbaro, a town in the Mexican state of Michoacán. There, the owners' great-grandfather ran a bakery that was known locally for artisan bread baked every day in a wood-fired oven. His son, Reynaldo, carried on the work, making bread by hand. The family now counts five generations of bakers.

The story then moves to North Carolina. The family writes that it opened what it describes as the first Mexican bakery in Winston-Salem in the early 2000s, with Reynaldo Jr. making traditional breads and pan dulce and Lolita adding cakes and desserts. The couple behind Artesano opened their own first bakery together in 2007, the history page says, and later sold that business after receiving an offer to buy it. They spent the years that followed raising four children and pursuing other work.

Artesano is their return to the oven. The bakery's website frames it as a way to keep the family craft going, and notes that the couple's children share their love of baking. The shop's tagline sums up the approach in three Spanish words: "Hecho con tradición," or made with tradition.

What's on the counter

The menu posted on the bakery's website is organized the way many Mexican panaderías are, by type of bread:

• Pan dulce (sweet breads): conchas with their shell-patterned sugar topping, cuernos, orejas and cortadillo, mostly in the $2 to $3 range.
• Filled pastries: filled conchas, empanadas, hojaldre and conos.
• Savory breads: bolillos and teleras (the classic rolls used for tortas), plus a baguette and a larger boule.
• Cakes and desserts: tres leches, mocha and chocolate cake by the slice, flan, choco-flan, gelatinas and a churro cheesecake. Custom cakes start at $35.
• Coffee and cold drinks: lattes, mochas and cappuccinos, café de olla (a traditional cinnamon-spiced coffee), aguas frescas, frappes and smoothies.

Photos on the bakery's Instagram account show a long glass case stocked with pan dulce, a dining area with booth seating, and a large painted mural on one wall.

Part of a busy stretch for Winston-Salem food openings

Artesano arrives during a lively season for new food businesses in the city. The Triad Business Journal's Oct. 12 roundup grouped it with two other Winston-Salem openings, including a Korean barbecue chain, and The Go-To Winston-Salem's Oct. 13 issue listed it alongside several coming-soon shops, among them a downtown board game cafe planned for West Fourth Street this winter.

What sets Artesano apart from most new arrivals is that it is not a chain or a first-time concept. It is a local family picking back up a trade it practiced here years ago, in a city where, by the family's account, it helped introduce Mexican-style baking to begin with.

Why a neighborhood bakery matters

Small, owner-run bakeries tend to become daily habits for the neighborhoods around them: a morning coffee and concha on the way to work, a bag of bolillos for dinner, a tres leches cake for a birthday. For families who grew up with pan dulce, a place that bakes it fresh is a taste of home. For everyone else, it is an easy, inexpensive way to try something new. With most sweet breads priced at a few dollars apiece, Artesano is the kind of stop that is simple to work into a regular routine.

If you visit, it is worth asking what came out of the oven most recently. At a traditional panadería, the selection shifts through the day, and the best pieces often go early.

If you go

• Where: Artesano Bakery, 329 Jonestown Road, Winston-Salem.
• Hours: The bakery's website lists 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. for the current day but does not post a full weekly schedule, so check its social pages before making a special trip.
• Online: artesanobakerync.com, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.
• Custom cakes: Available starting at $35; the website has a contact form for requests.

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