Betty Porto
By Leslee Komaiko
For dineLA.com
Anyone who has ever been to Porto’s, whether the Glendale, Burbank or newest Downey location, knows it is a phenom. On weekends especially, it seems like the entire world is at Porto’s, patiently waiting in line for guava pastries, Cuban sandwiches or some of those famous potato balls. It all started in 1976, when Rosa Porto opened a small bakery in Echo Park. This was five years after she and her family, husband Raul Sr., son Raul Jr. and daughters Beatriz and Margarita—emigrated to Los Angeles from their native Cuba. Beatriz was 14 at the time. Mom and dad have since retired from the business. Now the kids run the show. Beatriz ‘Betty’ Porto’s official title is Vice President for Community Relations. But she does a bit of everything.
Did you spend a lot of time at the bakery when you were a teenager?
My brother and sister and I would go there after school. We’d do our homework there, have dinner there. Our friends would come and visit. They enjoyed eating all the freebies. We’d have flour fights, egg fights. It wasn’t like now. It was a small mom and pop place. We made maybe only 10 items.
Was there ever a point when you thought about other careers?
You really don’t think. You get thrown into it. We were kids. That was the thing to do. We kept working all the way through university. I thought I was going to go to law school. But in 1982 when I finished with a masters [in political science], the business was no longer just a little venture. It was something that was turning a profit and we had worked here so long we fell in love with it and decided to stay.
Your brother and sister are still in the business as well?
We’re all still in the business. We all have our little niche. I do all the PR and non profits. My brother is more like the one who makes all the business decisions. My sister took after my mom. She’s very artistic. She makes all the wedding cakes and designs. She’s also good with numbers. So she runs numbers with her department.
You hear stories about the challenges of working with family.
To this point we are the exception to the rule. Remember, as we were growing up, we all had our little niche. I was helping customers. My brother was making bread. My sister was decorating cakes. We never ran into each other. My husband said, the reason it works is because it’s two women and one guy.
Explain.
Women are different. We don’t need to be in charge. We are moms. We are very happy to go home early because we have families and children. My sister and I, we just back up my brother.
Tell me about your typical work day.
It’s not like I’m sitting in one place. The typical day starts, I pass by Glendale and see if I need to take some paperwork to Downey. I go to the office and go to the floor and mingle, set up meetings for Glendale when I do non profits and all that. I’m meeting with different organizations that are requesting help. I meet with other people who are doing large volume orders. They come to me if they want to feed a thousand people. For me to organize that is very simple.
What’s the largest party you’ve done?
We make wedding cakes for a thousand people.
A single cake?
Yes. Our average wedding cake is for 250 people. We do a huge wedding business.
What is the most gratifying aspect of your job?
I’m a people person. I always bring people in, whether I do a tour for schools. (I donate tours to the schools as a way for them to raise funds. They sell those tours for like $1000.) We’re big on education so that’s one of the things I do a lot. It’s good PR for me and a good way of putting the community in touch with what we do. Right now we’re very involved in trying to become a part of the community in Downey. It’s easy because they’re already approaching me. We have a huge reputation for being generous. I don’t put ads in the newspaper. My advertising goes through non-profits. It’s personal, and it’s a lot of fun.
How do you feel about sites such as Yelp?
If you’re in this business you have no choice. We have great reviews on Yelp. So what we do is we have someone monitor this. It’s a lot more work for us. Now we feel obligated to check out Yelp to see if they’re saying something bad about us so we can fix it.
Porto’s prices are really reasonable. Does that mean you have been unaffected by the economic downturn?
We haven’t been affected. As a matter of fact, last year we picked up some more business. My brother is big on pricing. He’s always been below everyone else on pricing, not on quality. All the managers tell him we’re below but he doesn’t budge.
And all the chocolate you have when you buy a mousse here, it’s from Belgium. The butter is high quality. We buy bulk which gives us huge buying power. The more stores we open, the less we pay for a Coke. When we started we couldn’t believe that.
How many people does Porto’s employ?
We’re up to around 500 people with the new Downey location.
I assume some of your employees have been with you a long time.
We have had employees for twenty-some years. There’s not a lot of turnover. The trend is like fifty percent in fast food. For us it’s like 25 or 30 perfect. There has to be a healthy turnover because there are always employees who don’t deserve to be here.
I know customer service is a hallmark of Porto’s. You saved a friend of mine who needed a Star Wars cake in a pinch.
One time we delivered a wedding cake to the Glendale Hilton when the other vendor didn’t show up. My sister put a wedding cake together in an hour.
Can you teach good customer service?
We hire for the position. You can’t hire a person who doesn’t have a sincere smile to work up front, but they can work in back. To make bread you don’t need to be smiling.
Everyone knows about your cheese rolls and potato balls. Tell me about some items Porto’s makes that might be less well known?
We started as a Cuban bakery. The reason people know the meat pies and potato balls are those are my mother’s recipes. Those are the things that set us apart. Now we are a fancy high end bakery. We do mousses. We go to Italy to refine ourselves. There are 600 items.
Some might argue you can’t do 600 items well.
Then I put a challenge out there and say come and try every one of them. We do scones for instance. They’re top end. We do brioche, muffins and Danish. We make our own croissants; we make our own dough. Most bakeries buy their puff pastry.
We make mousses from an opera to a tiramisu.
What are some of your favorites?
I’m partial to desserts. I’m a sweetie. And we all sample, all the time. I might just go random to the kitchen. People in the kitchen taste their own stuff. Whenever we come up with a new product we sample for months. There’s a whole process. We come out with five new items a year.
Does that mean something else goes?
No. But one of the things I remember we got rid of was donuts. There are so many donut shops.
Porto’s is closed five days of the year, but not necessarily the days one might expect. For example, Memorial Day and the day after Thanksgiving but not actual Thanksgiving.
The day after Thanksgiving we decided to do it because we work so hard. The employees were exhausted. They deserve a break. We also use that as an incentive so we can be a more attractive employer. Employees get paid for all the days we’re closed. The busiest day is Christmas [Eve], the 24th. If we do well at Thanksgiving we’re prepared for Christmas. It’s like a tester. Thanksgiving is the second busiest. Mother’s Day is the busiest cake day.
Really?
Not everyone has a valentine but everyone has a mom.
I would think you’re kind of like a celebrity. When you’re out and about, and you hand over your credit card or i.d., do people see your last name and ask if you are that Porto?
I get it all the time especially in Glendale. In Glendale I go to the mall and everybody knows who I am. At Kaiser, the first thing people say is, ‘Did you bring us any cheese rolls or potato balls?’ So I’m the cheese roll-potato ball lady.
Do you think your kids will go into the business?
Between my brother and I we have seven kids. The oldest one is 22. He’s already working here, learning. He did the barista, the coffee, making mousses, learning how to make dough. He’s working at night. He comes in at 1 am, works all night long and he’s going to school too. We want to pass all those recipes on. That’s part of his training. My other sister, her daughter is working in the office and also as a cake decorator. My oldest daughter who is 17 comes in weekends and works in the decorating department. So out of seven, five of them are already working. We want to expose them to the business. We want them all to get a degree. They will be future owners whether they choose to work here or not. They’ll have their shares. It would be cool if some of them want to participate. We’re hoping they can get along. Part of our success is that we have always pulled together.
3614 W. Magnolia Blvd., Burbank, 818.846.9100
315 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale, 818.956.5996
8233 Firestone Blvd., Downey, 562.862.8888
http://www.portosbakery.com/
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