Immigrant couple opens York bakery to ‘chase the American dream’

(York) — Some of Anselmo Arrieta’s earliest memories growing up are of working at a panaderia with his family in Cholula, a city in the Mexican state of Puebla.

“If you can walk and move your arms, you can work,” Arrieta said with a laugh.

His father owned the panaderia — Spanish for bakery — and even at a young age, he did things like clean the cooking sheets, get flowers for tables and more.

Arrieta, the youngest of nine children, left Mexico in 1999 and was the only member of his family to leave. But before he did, he made his mother, Aurora Perez a promise – some day, he would open a bakery in her name in the United States.

In the time since, his father passed and his mother got older, but he still remembered the promise.

Last Friday, Arrieta hopped on a video call with his mother. For months, he had been working on a project in secret.

“I said, ‘Hey mom, I have a surprise for you,’” Arrieta said. “‘Remember my promise?’”

Arrieta then stepped away, revealing the signs on the windows of York’s newest bakery – Aurora’s Bakery.

“She just started crying,” he said. “She said ‘I want to go there and see the place.’”

Aurora’s opened this July, owned and operated by Mexican immigrants Arrieta and his wife Guadelupe Rosete. The pair met in New York City, and moved to York in 2002 to “chase the American Dream.”

“The community embraced (us) and we embraced them,” Rosete said. “We’re here 17 years in York and people are always welcoming us and nice to us. It was easy for us (to stay).”

The couple has embraced the community with volunteerism and local events – such as the Cinco De Mayo Festival at Kiwanis Lake and the American Red Cross. Their son, Ariel, is an Eagle Scout who worked on his Eagle Scout project at York’s St. Mary’s Church.

For the family, volunteerism is more than just a way to pass the time, it’s a way to help share their heritage.

“We want to do things, to share a culture and our heritage,” Rosete said.

The bakery opened in the shopping center between North Duke and North Queen streets near the C-Town Supermarket, where the former Stadium Grille once was.

Even in its short existence, the restaurant was kneaded into a blend of its surrounding neighborhoods – the affluent downtown York two blocks west, and a more ethnically diverse community two blocks east. It’s the kind of place where a black Army veteran can peruse a case of pastries while a Spanish-speaking customer chats with an employee and a white former scoutmaster of Ariel’s stops in to say hi to the family.

“This is what I wanted,” Arrieta said. “I wanted everyone to be welcome.”

And having good food will do that.

Ariel’s favorite food there is the Torta Cubana – a “really fat sandwich” featuring chorizo, ham and steak with eggs, beans, onions and more that Aurora’s sells for $10.99. They also make traditional Mexican sweet bread.

“I wanted something original – the food had to be the way we used to eat in Mexico because it’s so good,” Rosete said.

The work isn’t easy. Arrieta, who has worked in restaurants and bakeries for most of his life, still works as a baker at a diner in northern Maryland. He starts there at 4 a.m., and drives up to York to work at Aurora’s following his shift at 8 a.m. He then works at Aurora’s until after its 8 p.m. closing time.

This isn’t about chasing money, it’s about chasing the American Dream.

“It’s not about us, it’s about him,” Arrieta said, pointing at his son. “It’s about his future and how he’s looking at life. I think the American Dream is just giving a better life to your family.”

If you go…

What: Aurora’s Bakery

Where: 133 N. Duke St., York

Hours: 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday, 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday

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