Where to Get Your Conchas in Southeast Austin

Every Austinite should know the joy of a vanilla concha and a steaming cup of coffee.

When I was a kid, my abuela would drive over huge bags of conchas and bolillos from her local panadería, and we’d happily devour them with mugs of Mexican hot chocolate. The conchas – round, flavorful bread with a shell-like sugar topping – are soft to the bite, made by hand, sweet but not too sweet. I’ve put together a shortlist of panaderías mexicanas, Mexican bakeries, for those readers in Southeast Austin looking for handcrafted conchas and freshly baked pan dulce (in no particular order – you really can’t go wrong here).

La Reyna Bakery

Locals say that you need to get here early – the fresh batch of bread comes out in the morning and very quickly sells out. The conchas are delightfully soft. The ojo de buey’s caramelized surface breaks with a nice crunch. Beyond pan dulce, they serve menudo and tacos for lunch and dinner. La Reyna Bakery has been in the Flores Sanchez family for three generations; Francisco Flores Sanchez remembers helping his father, the panadero before he retired, back when he was a kid. “My love is for the labor of the bread,” Flores Sanchez told me in Spanish.

Mi Tradición

Mi Tradición has an impressive selection of conchas, cookies, pastelitos, sweet empanadas, and almost any other Latine delicacy you can think of, baked all day in-house. A tumble of fresh bolillos spilled out of the oven in the back, and two fresh trays of marronitos (gingerbread pigs) went in their place. The vanilla concha had that classic texture and sweetness. Chuy Guevara, known in the neighborhood as Chuli, opened the panadería back in 2012, and it’s been an institution of the community ever since. “Our goal is to keep our traditions and our culture alive,” Guevara said.

Casa Maria

Fatima Robles opened Casa Maria in 1997 and envisioned a split restaurant and panadería, two businesses sharing a connecting hallway. After snarfing down a plate of barbacoa or chuletas, customers can stop by the panadería for their fresh bread. Casa Maria has a large selection rivaling that of Mi Tradición, the pink and yellow conchas nearly glowing under the lit display counter. The concha I tried landed on the sweeter side with the classic bread texture. “Everything is made here in-house, with the recipes of our panaderos,” Robles said in Spanish.

Las Delicias

Though inside a grocery store (known as both La Superior Market #2 and La Fresco Market) that also has its own taquería and carnicería (meat market), and with a smaller bread selection, the conchas were even softer than average, melting in the mouth, and had wonderful texture and flavor. You can count on a variety of cream-filled pastries, breads, and little cakes baked fresh every day in the back kitchen. The owner, Ray, opened Las Delicias 10 years ago and it has been a part of the neighborhood ever since, supplying residents with fresh produce, meat, and of course, pan dulce.

Comadre Panadería

Comadre’s menu packs thoughtfully crafted flavors with red berry conchas, mesquite pecan polvorones, and jalapeño pan de elote. The vanilla concha I tried was a creative twist on more classic recipes, hits of salt and citrus accompanying every bite. Comadre started out as a pop-up shop in 2017, and six years later, owner Mariela Camacho was able to open up its current brick-and-mortar in East Austin. “I wanted to make a difference in this very inequitable food system that we have to participate in,” Camacho said. “Nourishing, organic, and high-quality, local ingredients when possible, that are harvested as responsibly as they can be.”

This article appears in June 6 • 2025.