08/23/2026
On July 4, 2003 the Chicago Tribune published a front page business article on our El Nopal Bakery inaccurately stated our sales as low all day on a Saturday at $30 without fact checking with us. Our real sales were a lot higher than that in the summer. The reporter wrote she stayed at the bakery all day but I never saw her when I was there in the evening. Fabricated quotes we nor our employees never said that business was bad due to gentrification which in truth never bothered us because we had customers from all over the city. The rest of the article promoted a new bakery that was connected to a TV chef (according to the Chicago Sun-Times) the Tribune always promotes. It was very surreal.
Then the Tribune reprinted it in Spanish and a local church reprinted it. The whole thing upset my mom. She became adamant that no one was going to force us out of Pilsen saying "50 years in business and for what?"
But my mom was also afraid the Tribune conglomerate could crush us.
About 3 months after the article was published my dad had a mini stroke that gave him vascular dementia. My mom took care of him but the stress gave her a mini-stroke giving her vascular dementia. I took care of both my parents. They were once fiercely independent but now extremely dependent upon me. I could not take care of them and the bakery at the same time. It forced us to close and sell property to pay bills. My parents died from complications from dementia.
After my dad had his mini-stroke, I asked a friend of mine who graduated from Harvard Law and was a New York Supreme Court judge if I had a good case. He said yes and then said
"Let me see how they do things in Chicago...(He confers with a colleague)... It's just as I thought. The Tribune is too powerful. No judge will rule against them."
He told me not to expect anything not even a retraction. He predicted correctly as our case was dismissed by a judge and my attorney said the judge ignored him. The New York Supreme Court judge read the Tribune article and said someone was doing a hatchet job on us. I didn't appeal because it was becoming expensive and I didn't think we would be treated fairly.
The Tribune wrote in their legal briefs that they were doing us as a favor.
In my opinion Mexican owned businesses were being targeted in Pilsen to force them out so the Mexican community could follow them out and their buildings and homes could be bought cheap.
The video is my mom reminiscing as she cried a lot for my father after he died. She was telling me when he was 10 years old he sold donuts barefoot in Mexico. My dad was born in Texas but when his parents divorced his dad took him to Mexico. My parents met at Jalisco Bakery and restaurant in San Antonio Texas after 1945. I said the wrong name of that bakery, it was Jalisco Bakery. My mom was the Jalisco Bakery new manager. I want you to know my mom was always well-dressed and wore makeup but here my mom was in declining health when that video was taken from dementia and renal failure. My mom died a year or so later.
El Nopal Bakery® is no longer in Little Village and Pilsen. No authorized El Nopal Bakery is on 26th Street Little Village. I did license our Hojarasca® Cookies recipe based on my father's original detailed recipe used at the original bakery to the Chicago History Museum who are wonderful people. I'm gratified to know only the museum has the original recipe so the authentic famous Hojarasca® cookies can be continued to be baked for Chicagoans. I asked for no royalties on sales so all the cookie profits can help fund their exhibits. They now have an exhibit called Aqui en Chicago showing a large photo of my father baking bread and wrote that my parents are Chicago Legends.
Thank you for reading,
Frank
Chicago History Museum
