So, I just started researching and begging people for jobs.” “I’d need to hire someone to do that, and I really wanted to be a part of it. “I wouldn’t get enjoyment out of it if I wasn’t doing the making,” she explains. With culinary school out of the question (“too expensive”), she decided the best way to learn was by working alongside some of the best pastry chefs and bakers in the business. But that’s what Colazas Rodriguez had her sights set on. Opening a bakery while also being your head baker is another. I worked in the nonprofit world for a couple of years, and then I just was like, ‘I need to learn how to make stuff if I want to do that.’” So that’s kind of where I started, and I didn’t know how to get there. And I always thought it would be so cool to have a cafe where things were being made in-house with local fruit. But all the cafes I worked at in Long Beach didn’t have pastries that met the coffee, in my opinion. I loved going to cafes when I studied abroad in Europe and Morocco. “I was working at cafes during college, and I always loved it,” she explains. What she didn’t realize at the time was that the coffee shop jobs that kept her afloat in college while she was buried in her majors would end up inspiring her to make a surprising career pivot. “I was going to try to work for the CIA or something,” she says, laughing. A graduate of Cal State Long Beach, she was a history and economics major with a minor in Middle Eastern studies. “I was coming over all the time when I was a kid, but I hadn’t really been over here since,” she explains.įor Colazas Rodriguez, becoming a baker-slash-small business owner wasn’t some lifelong dream that’s suddenly been realized. ![]() Her father, Zan Colazas, was the principal at Seventh Street Elementary School for nearly a decade, retiring in 2010. (photo: John Mattera Photography)īorn and raised in Long Beach, the 30-year-old entrepreneur has her San Pedro connections. So much so that a second location in Belmont Shore will be opening up by mid-February.Ī mix of Colossus Bread pastries. Great word of mouth and a strong social media following has helped keep the bakery in the black through the pandemic. The buzz was high about Colossus Bread’s San Pedro opening in August 2019, and her pastries and coffee didn’t disappoint. “But I feel like a good bakery, a good coffee shop, I feel like that’s something that people here would appreciate. I don’t know what the vibe is,” she explains. “I don’t know, exactly, what the demographics are of San Pedro right now. Plus, it was affordable, and Colazas Rodriguez was attracted to the charm of opening up a small neighborhood cafe. The storefront had been the home to a few bakeries in the past, which helped with the move-in and setup. That insecurity faded the more she kept searching in town, eventually landing in the 700 square foot space next door to The Chori-Man, on the corner of Alma and 23rd Street. “I was a little worried that I didn’t know if we had a base here.” “We were already wholesaling in Long Beach, and I was worried that might be kind of far,” remembers Colazas Rodriguez. She began her search in 2018 when a friend suggested looking in San Pedro. After making a name for herself selling bread and pastries in the Long Beach area through various farmers markets and local cafes, owner Kristin Colazas Rodriguez decided it was time to open a storefront. ![]() “It’s a sign of the times,” one woman says as she walks away with her coffee and croissant.Ĭolossus Bread, which opened its doors a year and a half ago, arrived in San Pedro to much fanfare. The pastry case sits against the front window for all to view. Customers place and pick up orders at the doorway, which now has a large sheet of plexiglass separating the staff from the public. Due to COVID restrictions, the front entrance now serves as the bakery’s outdoor take-out counter. ![]() In line is a mix of young coffee hipsters, middle-aged professionals, neighborhood families, and a longshoreman, all waiting quietly outside, staring at their phones while standing on socially distant black squares peppered along the wide Alma Street sidewalk. Kristin Colazas Rodriguez, owner of Colossus Bread.
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