His first and only food service job, Kelly’s French Bakery co-owner Javier Ortiz started there as a baker in 1992 at age 21. Raised in Watsonville, he says at the time he was simply looking for a job and credits his father for instilling in him the strong work ethic required for industry success.
He learned the baking basics and then all aspects of the process before being quickly promoted to manager and then general manager.
When the founding owners, Kelly and Mark Sanchez, decided they wanted to retire, Ortiz was handed the torch and trusted to carry on the business’ sparkling reputation and legacy. He has now owned Kelly’s for the past four years along with his wife, Gabriela Hernandez, whom he met there.
The main business is a wholesale artisan bakery, but Ortiz says Hernandez encouraged him to open their Swift Street pop-up that caters to individual customers. The top seller is their heritage mini carrot cake, and other favorites include the unctuous mini chocolate mousse cake with raspberry puree and traditional Mexican tres leches cake. Their myriad pastries also please the crowd, rife with options like croissants, eclairs, morning buns, muffins, brownies, bagels, bear claws and Danishes as well as cookies like snickerdoodle, chocolate chip and peanut butter.
How did your Swift St. pop-up come to be?
JAVIER ORTIZ: It was mostly inspired by my wife missing the cake-making aspect of the business, which she really loved. When Covid hit, Kelly’s restaurant shut down and cake making stopped. But she still had so much pent-up passion for it and really missed the creative aspects of not only making, but also decorating and designing the cakes. And we both also missed having an individual customer-facing side of the business dealing with guests directly, and now we have that again.
Tell me your work ethic origin story.
It began with my dad, when my brother and I were in high school, he would get us out of bed at 5am and have us clean the bar that my grandpa owned at the time. It was really difficult to get up that early, but complaining did nothing about it and looking back, this experience really taught me the value of hard work. Without my dad, I wouldn’t be where I am today.
402 Ingalls Street Suite 17, Santa Cruz, 831-423-9059; kellysfrenchbakery.com
