Tacoma’s best new bakery is quirky and talented. Try the churro cruffins

Miguel Silva-Glenn worked in many New York kitchens, but it was a stint at a bakery known for its chocolate babka — in a city with lots of luscious babkas — that changed his life, and maybe ours, if you’re likewise on an insatiable quest for pastries of a certain kind in or near Tacoma.

At Breads Bakery, the Mexico City native met Keely, who was looking for a part-time job while in college. The manager jokingly advised them to keep their distance.

“He was wrong!” she recalled this spring at their commissary kitchen in Central Tacoma, where their mobile-and-wholesale-only Lobo Bakery miraculously manages to bake around 1,000 “croissant units” every week.

On a recent Wednesday, Miguel was tending to mounds of freshly made dough awaiting their overnight rest before being portioned, laminated and rested again. They bake most of their weekly haul on Fridays, filling dozens with homemade raspberry-plum jam, roasted apricots and crushed pistachios, chocolate and tahini.

They maneuver the same laminated dough into three-inch tall metal tins to create towering cruffins, the muffin-croissant hybrid that originated in Melbourne, Australia, in the early 2010s. A signature move for the Miguel-Silvas involves rolling the pastry in sugar and piping in dulce de leche — find these churro cruffins most Saturdays at the Proctor and Puyallup farmers market and weekdays at Third Space and Naomi Joe Coffee.

Lobo Bakery is elusive in that way, but pastry people (myself included) will travel for the right stuff, and Lobo has surely got it.

UPPING THE CROISSANT GAME IN TACOMA

The Miguel-Silvas left the big city for Keely’s home state about a decade ago, in search of a more affordable living and perhaps an eventual business of their own. They lived mostly in Seattle until 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic urged them across the Cascades to be closer to family. They started delivering babkas, kouign-amann, tartes and flan directly to customers and to a few local grocers in Spokane under the name The Collection Bakery. Readying for their next life move, they missed New York but saw an opportunity in the South Sound, where the pastry game still feels wide open.

“It’s so much money to start your own thing there,” noted Miguel, especially without outside investment. Instead of returning to Seattle, they bought a home in Lakewood. Amid raising two young children, they taught themselves how to laminate pastry through YouTube videos and cookbooks, found a commercial kitchen space, invested in some new equipment and relaunched the bakery in Pierce County with a focus on croissants.

Steadily, word has spread of their fine honeycomb structure, of their playful flavor combinations and of their varying shapes such as “squiggles” and “knots”.

Instead of combining naturally tangy rhubarb with the usual strawberry, for instance, a recent spring favorite added lemon. “Our M.O. is not too sweet,” said Keely. Their classic almond croissant stands out, too, omitting the usual extract and relying on their own frangipane blitzed with skin-on almonds.

In less than five years they have conjured around five dozen flavors, including raspberry and hibiscus, cherry and cardamom, strawberry and lychee, roasted pineapple and rum. Their strengths also extend beyond viennoiserie into chocolate chip cookies, Ukrainian honey cake, the occasional empanada, tres leches, challah and focaccia.

“You know, we worked at an Israeli-Jewish bakery,” said Keely, nodding to his Mexican and her Ukrainian families. “We try to integrate our culture and our culinary backgrounds.”

Also: “We both get bored!”

Just a few hours into a baking marathon ahead of a jam-packed Mother’s Day weekend, the lineup featured croissant “nests” topped by burnt strawberry jam, raspberry-rhubarb compote with pastry cream, and lemon curd with meringue. They use every scrap of their laminated dough — remnants are reconfigured into flaky cinnamon rolls, pecan sticky buns and the “pretty and evil at the same time” croissant knots.

With the help of two employees in the kitchen and Keely’s mother at home, they have committed to four farmers markets for the high season: Lakewood on Tuesdays plus Proctor, Puyallup and Maple Valley on Saturdays. In March, they unveiled their new branding and wolf logo (“something a little wild and a little weird!” as they describe it) and announced their first push into wholesale, which already has a waiting list.

They’re taking it slowly because — praise be to the benevolent croissant lords — they have every intention of opening their own storefront in Tacoma, said Keely.

“So we want to make sure we’re crafting to high-quality standards but add some variety, and not overextend or over-saturate the market for our own brick-and-mortar.”

Wherever they land, Miguel anticipates doubling-down on his cooking experience by resurrecting The Collection concept as a seasonal supper club.

For now, taste the not-too-sweet treats for yourself at the following locations:

▪ Naomi Joe Coffee, 2101 Jefferson Ave. — daily 8 a.m.-5 p.m.

▪ Third Space, 921 Pacific Ave. — Monday-Friday 7 a.m.-3 p.m.

▪ Lakewood Farmers Market, Fort Steilacoom Park, Tuesdays 2-7 p.m.

▪ Proctor Farmers Market, North 27th and Proctor, Saturdays 9 a.m.-3 p.m.

▪ Puyallup Farmers Market, Pioneer Park, Saturdays 9 a.m.-2 p.m.

▪ Maple Valley Farmers Market, 25719 Maple Valley Black Diamond Road SE, Saturdays 9 a.m.-2 p.m.

LOBO BAKERY

▪ Details: croissant-focused mobile/wholesale bakery, seeking storefront by 2026; follow instagram.com/lobo_bakery for updates and weekly menus

This story was originally published May 13, 2025 at 8:00 AM.