Panaderia Andrea

I have a huge sweet tooth and a sucker for fresh baked goods — cookies, brownies, pastries, pies. I was seriously spoiled living a few blocks from Sultan Bakery in San Jose.
Now I find myself located halfway between Glen Park and Excelsior. If in Glen Park, Destination Bakery is solid, and can lean on the plethora of coffee spots if in a pinch. On the Excelsior side, there aren’t traditional US bakeries. However there are a plethora of Asian and Latin American bakeries. While the Chinese cakes and rolls, and Filipino turon, are delicious, but they don’t occupy the same role as a cookie.
So you can appreciate my thrill in finding cookies at Panaderia Andrea. Now no these were not chocolate chip, and they may be called empanadas, but close enough. I got three, one each filled with either pineapple, guava, or strawberry. They were all ridiculously good. I tend to limit myself to a single cookie a day, but barely stopped at two on the first night. In fact if I host a party at the end of the month, I will definitely be getting this as a dessert.
I will have to try their other times, but for these fruit-​filled cookies, I am now hooked.

Delicious breakfast and tamales. My favorite is the huevos con chorizo and chicken tamales. Staff is friendly. Good prices. One of my go to spots in the Excelsior.

Need an order of tamales for the holidays ?? They take orders in advance and are ready for you to pick them up by Christmas ! Such a life saver ESPECIALLY when you don’t have the time to make them. Need bread to make pan con Pavo for thanksgiving? They have plenty ! This is a family owned and ran business. They make you feel like your business is VERY appreciated and it is !

I think they closed down this place and it just reopened I went and it was good bread but hygiene wise it didn’t look so clean it had bugs flying inside and no customer service whatsoever

The Bread Pudding is good and a bit different from a traditional in the sense that it doesn’t appear to have much cream if any. However, it’s tasty and when warmed with a little Vanilla Ice Cream, it’s VERY good. Also, the other baked goodies are worth a visit as well. What I like is that the desserts aren’t overly sweet. Lastly, the owners are really cool. In the evenings, if you can catch the male owner, he is super nice and very friendly. This place has great service, nice owners and a great selection. Other store owners, if you want to know what great customer service is, go to Andrea’s and be schooled…

In the past two weeks I must have stopped by Panaderia Andrea about 4 or 5 times. And my experience only gets better with each visit.
For anyone that doesn’t know, Panaderia Andrea specializes in El Salvadorian and Guatemalan breads/​pan dulce. The shop offers various other offerings such as atole and tamales but I have yet to try these. There is limited seating inside so be prepared to take your items to go just in case. And be forewarned, parking can be difficult so it might be best to look for parking on London instead of Mission.
I have been more than satisfied with everything I have tried so far. The pastelitos are great and a bargain at only $ 0.50 each (I recommend pineapple and strawberry). The santanecas are delicious and inexpensive at $ 0.50 each. I have tried a variety of the cookies ($ 0.50) and I assure you that you won’t be disappointed with any of them. I’ve become a huge fan of a Guatemalan pan dulce they sell which I believe is called a cortada. Someone can correct me if I am wrong. This pan dulce is usually on the bottom rack all the way on the right. It appears to be one long segmented piece of pan dulce and each segment is $ 0.50. The mini quesadillas are $ 1.50 and they are fantastic! I love the flavor and texture. I look forward to trying their semita alta on a future visit.
Oh — and to top it all off the service is friendly and warm. I’ve interacted with 3 different employees so far and each has been wonderful. I highly recommend stopping by if you’ve got a thing for pan dulce or if you’re just curious.

Limited selection compared to other panaderias BUT… you’ll find items here you won’t find in other places. And everything I’ve tried is delicious!
— My absolute favorite thing (which they don’t always have) is their banana sticky bread loaf (they don’t actually have a name for it, so that’s my own description). It’s pure sticky magical deliciousness! The loaf is lined with strips of roasted, carmelized banana. The bread itself is infused with what seems to be condensed milk and honey. It doesn’t look attractive, but the taste is heaven, assuming you love bananas, that is. (photo:
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— Custard infused conchas (like a danish): They have strawberry and pineapple, too, but I love the custard which is in the middle of a conch-​shaped sweetbread.
— Cream puffs: Thick cream sandwiched between flaky, pastry layers, sprinkled with powdered sugar. It sort of falls apart when you bite into it, like a sugar-​dust cloud. Ahh! (photo:
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They also sell tamales. And here is their food menu:
There are a few tables scattered in the store, so you can enjoy your goodies there. The staff is quite friendly, too — they entertain my repeateded questions of «Oooh, what’s that?» with the utmost patience. And I never spend more than $ 5 here, even though I feel like I walk out with a ton of stuff. Definitely work checking out!

I’m a super white girl, recently transplanted to The Excelsior. Found a huge love for pan dulce after moving here, so one morning I had a craving… I went down mission and found this place, walked in, and was pretty surprised. Not because it was so delicious (because it was) but because a few of the lesser known pastries were labeled. yay! no guessing! This is actually the first Salvadorian bakery I’ve been in. So I had to try one of the quesadillas! oh. my. god. I could only eat half but it was SOOOOOO good. melt in your mouth delicious! ever since I’ve been dreaming about it… craving it… but I haven’t given in… yet.

I love the guayaba (guava) cookies. The quesadilla is really good too, one of the better central american bakeries in the Excelsior.

This Central American bakery makes the BEST quesadillas (Salvadorian cheesy poundcake), French dinner rolls and cookies in town.
I used to go to Pacita’s (see my review), but find Panaderia Andrea less crowded and better tasting. The fact that it’s closer to my house is just, well, icing on the cake.
P. S. Check out their chicken Central American Tamales. They sell out quick!

Freshly baked wheat rolls with a touch of honey and molasses? Yes please!

Good Central American Bakery. The bread is coming fresh every couple of hours and since they are a new bakery, they are trying different things, which is good since every different type is awesome.
Recommended: Torta de Pasa: its a rectangular shaped bread for $ 1.75. Its a soft pound cake-​like bread with raisins in it. It is the best i have ever had.
Don’t believe me? Go in the Bakery. Ask for one. And make sure your crew is there to witness it. Its that good!
The Owner is pretty cute too!

I noticed this new bakery from Central America while driving by one morning, so I decided to check them out.
Panaderias (bakeries) are very popular in Central & South America, u often see people waiting in line to buy fresh-​off-​the-​oven bread every morning and afternoon. There was no line here. I spoke to the owner to ask if they had a schedule when bread was baked daily. He told me that they don’t have a specific schedule, just sometime in the morning. Bread rolls are 4 for $ 1. I bought a few sweet pastries to sample at 40 cents each. Everything tasted fresh and good.
There’s a refrigerator In the back area, filled with soft drinks and several pre-​packaged desserts. I picked a flan ($ 1.30).
Additional purchases on followup visits: apple turnover, 2 gusanitos, empanada de leche, and besito.
Update: They’ve added tamales (chicken or pork, $ 2.25 each).
Hours: daily 7:30am — 8:30pm
CASH only

Awesome central american baked good. Quesadia is awesome!!! The cheese is good and their french bread is good too.

great central american bakery.
have a variety of pastries to choose from

Brand new bakery in the neighborhood.
They have good Central American pastries, and really good baguettes.
They also feature a home made cheese that I still have to try.
I like the small pastries filled with strawberry or guava pastes.