Eat, Drink, Savor: El Nopal and a five generation family tradition

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When Frankie Berlanga turned 13, his father Adolfo, founder of Hollister’s El Nopal Bakery, told him, “Congratulations, you get to work now.” It was a family tradition: Adolfo heard the same words when he was 12 from his father, Francisco, who owned the El Nopal in Watsonville.

“My dad glorified it to me,” Berlanga said, “so I would want to go to work. I’d stamp the conchas, put sugar on them, put them in the rack. If somebody didn’t show up, I’d work on the table and make all the bread.” 

By the time he got his driver’s license, he would come in at 4:30 a.m., work, then go to high school. After school, he would be back to work, picking up tortillas to deliver to the restaurants. He dreamt of being an underwater welder—don’t ask him why—but he was being paid $400 a week, had no outstanding bills, and decided he was happy exactly where he was.

“I thought, ‘If this is what I make when I’m working,’” he said, “‘what will I make when I own it? So I decided to drop out and stay here with my dad. He told me, ‘You’re a good baker and you don’t have to go to school to be a baker.’”

It was another family tradition. Berlanga’s grandfather Francisco never made it past sixth grade, and, learning the baking trade from his father—who learned it from his father—opened his first bakery in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, ultimately hopscotching his way from there to Laredo, Texas, then to San Jose, Salinas and, in 1967, Pajaro. 

“He named it ‘El Gallo,’” Berlanga said. “In Mexico, bakeries are always named ‘El Gallo’ or ‘El Nopal.’ He had to change it because someone had already trademarked that one.”

50 years ago Adolfo, now running the Pajaro bakery and looking for new locations, stopped for a beer at the Baler Market, where Hollister Super Market now stands on Third Street. The long-boarded up dry cleaning establishment across the street beckoned and Adolfo, on the strength of a $1,000 loan from his father, received his business license on March 12, 1975.

At the time, El Nopal, according to Berlanga, was the only Mexican Bakery in Hollister and Adolfo worked seven days a week. A few years in, Adolfo began making tortillas and cornered the market. It was a major breakthrough for the business. 

“My dad came up with this recipe by himself,” Berlanga said, “Told me he failed a lot as he developed it. He even had one with beer in it, because of the yeast. That one didn’t work.”

They are made today using the same recipe, a secret combination of salt, lard, flour, water and baking powder. A small amount of preservatives are added to slightly stretch the shelf life: a week on the counter, two weeks in the refrigerator or “forever,” Berlanga said, in the freezer.

Making tortillas at El Nopal starts at 6 a.m., but by that time, Berlanga and his main baker have already put in half a day’s work. Production starts at midnight, when the ovens are turned on. Starting at 1 a.m., the various doughs for the day are being prepared; by 3:30 a.m., the first loaves are out of the oven and cooling. 

The bakery opens at 5 a.m. but some of the more stalwart customers are known to have sneaked some of their favorites a little earlier than that. By that time, Berlanga will have retreated to his office for a moment to catch up on paperwork and payroll, returning to the floor at 6 a.m. to start the production of tortillas.

His office work may be the only time Berlanga rests during the day. He maintains a grueling schedule, living off of long naps taken periodically during the day.

Corn tortillas are made daily, until around 10 a.m. Flour tortillas are made two or three times a day, from then until around 2 p.m. They start with a worker placing four small balls of dough on a conveyor belt. A heated press comes down, flattening them to close to paper-thin. The tortilla-making machine takes up about two thirds of the long kitchen and the belt loops around as the pressed dough is passed through flames that puff them up and finish them.

At the end of the process, the tortillas are pulled off the belt and hand-packaged. A truly amazing number are made: a four-hour run of corn tortillas can produce up to 4,300 packs a day, a full eight-hour run of corn and flour can produce over 7,000.

Rotating ovens produce French bread, French rolls, hamburger buns, and torta bread for sandwiches. About 30% of the breads go to restaurants, which have included Farmhouse Cafe, Paines, the 19th Hole and, formerly, Dona Esthers. The sweet breads and cookies are mostly sold at the bakery, made with recipes dating back to Berlanga’s great-great-great grandfather’s shop in Nuevo León.

The tortillas are everywhere, from the new Tres Pinos Farmstand to local taco trucks to the thousands made for the Community FoodBank of San Benito County. If you have had a taco or burrito anywhere in the surrounding area, the chances are good the tortilla came from El Nopal.

As a result of a grant and new state guidelines on nutrition, El Nopal has started supplying whole wheat tortillas and breads to Chef Mike Fisher, the culinary arts instructor at Hollister High School. 

“I was looking around for other avenues to make money,” Berlanga said. “We sell the school rolls for their tri-tip sandwiches and Mike and I started talking about other opportunities.”

The two have known each other since they were both high schoolers themselves. Fisher said when funds became available to purchase bread locally rather than commercial frozen products, much less the whole grain bread that Berlanga developed for the school, buying from El Nopal was a “no-brainer.”

“El Nopal has been an asset to this community for as long as I can remember,” he said, “His recipe gets the highest amount of whole wheat and greatest nutritional benefits. It’s soft and I love how fresh it is.”

Following in his father’s example, Berlanga’s son, also named Frankie, has joined in the family tradition of working at the bakery, coming in during the summer months at 6 a.m. to join in making the corn tortillas. 

“He will come in and help when I am short of workers,” Berlanga said, “I’m definitely working him and not paying him so much, so he hates it!”  

Berlanga credits the loyalty of the community, the dependability of his long-time workers and, in particular, his wife Cherub’s never-ending support for El Nopal’s success. 

“I hardly ever mention her in these interviews,” he said, “but she’s been the reason that I was able to be successful and was my backbone when my dad passed away in 2018. I don’t think I’d be here if it wasn’t for her keeping me straight.”

El Nopal Bakery 
216 3rd St, Hollister

Monday 5 a.m. – 8:45 p.m. 
Tuesday – closed
Wednesday-Saturday 5 a.m. – 8:45 p.m.
Sunday – 5 a.m.– 7:45 p.m.

El Nopal on Facebook and Instagram

Recommendations for future Eat, Drink, Savor articles can be emailed to roberteliason@benitolink.com.

BenitoLink thanks our underwriters, Hollister Super and Windmill Market, for helping to expand the Eat, Drink, Savor series and give our readers the stories that interest them. Hollister Super (two stores in Hollister) and Windmill Market (in San Juan Bautista) support reporting on the inspired and creative people behind the many delicious food and drink products made in San Benito County. All editorial decisions are made by BenitoLink.