Mr. Ben's is back: Beloved Brownsville bakery reopens

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Mr. Ben’s Bakery, a longtime fixture of downtown Brownsville at 851 E. Madison St., is back in business thanks to a pair of budding entrepreneurs, Joe Avila and Fabiola Munoz.

Their aim to continue the tradition of Mexican-style sweet breads the bakery was always known for, while also trying out new ideas — ube (purple yam) conchas, for instance.

According to Munoz, who holds a bachelor’s degree in graphic art from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley but is new to baking, Benjamin Ortiz founded Mr. Ben’s in 1970 with his wife, Dominga, and even supplied biscuits to local restaurants while also serving the bakery’s own loyal customer base.

A daughter, Elva Gomez, worked at the bakery alongside her father, who died in 2018, and eventually took over the business. Without a steady baker, however, it became a struggle, and Gomez finally decided one day that she was done. Enter Munoz and Avila, who is close friends with Gomez’s son.

“It wasn’t very stable and it just kind of dwindled,” Avila said of the business. “It slowly started fading away.”

Gomez closed the business under her name and Avila reopened it under his, though she still owns the building, which includes a portion on the corner proper that once was the main shop but now needs some work to get it back into commission.

Munoz and Avila spent six months getting the new bakery space ready for occupation — repairing the ceiling, painting, fixing up an old wood and glass display case, installing a grease trap (expensive).

Then there was the matter of the vintage oven, a hulking, gas-fired beast.

“We cleaned the oven,” Munoz said. “That took us like three days.”

“I came out orange,” Avila added.

The city and fire department inspectors were nothing but helpful in answering all their questions and getting the resurrected establishment to a successful opening day, he said.

The new Mr. Ben’s opened on July 3. Two days later, the city closed that stretch of East Madison Street for repairs. Munoz went into emergency mode, posting on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to tell customers where they could park.

“I had to be creative,” she said. “We made it work, and thanks to that, my presence constantly on social media, a lot of people have come from other places: Houston, Chicago, Dallas, Edinburg.”

Indeed, to see what’s on the menu any given day — Mr. Ben’s is open Monday-Friday 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. — or to find out what Munoz is experimenting with that afternoon, check out any of the bakery’s three social media sites.

Avila, like Munoz, is new to baking, though they both already knew how to cook and “love food.” He studied engineering, spent time in Austin learning audio production, and learned about retail via management positions at Walgreens — an experience that translates well to the retail bakery business, Avila said.

And he appreciates the science and exactness required for baking. Avila noted that Munoz’s biscocho dough serves as the basis for many of Munoz’s creations.

“That’s one of the sweeter types of breads that you can make,” he said. “It is the base for the concha. But from that she makes a whole lot of different ones, including some salty bread too, like for example trenzas, and the croissants.”

Mr. Ben’s offerings also include the piojosa, a sesame seed bun (the name means “lousy” in Spanish, a nod to the seeds), plus a relative of the cinnamon roll called a rebanada, made with butter and, of course, cinnamon. Munoz likes to remain true to traditional Mexican baked delicacies but also enjoys riffing on those traditions — ube-jam-filled conchas, for instance, ube being a (very) purple yam native to the Philippines.

“It’s a purple potato basically and it’s sweet, but not too sweet, not too bitter,” Munoz said. “It’s perfect and it has a beautiful color. That’s what inspired me to do the purple conchita. The other that we have is Nutella. Everyone knows Nutella. And we have cajeta as well.”

The alternative conchas are all part of the pair putting their own stamp on the venerable Mr. Ben’s brand. As for immediate next steps, Avila and Munoz plan to put in a specialty coffee and tea bar, and buy a new fryer to replace the old one, which was broken, so they can bring back doughnuts, churros and the like.

Longer term, they want to fix whatever needs to be fixed in the adjoining space to get a certificate of occupancy and put in tables and chairs as a place for customers to chill, maybe with an arcade for kids and young adults.

Munoz, strategizing for ways to get the public’s attention with the bakery, came up with the idea of a podcast in time for Halloween, where locals are invited to share their personal experiences of the supernatural. The building, built in 1935, is haunted, after all, as is an adjacent residential property, she said.

It took Avila and Munoz three days to come up with the perfect name: The Mr. Pan-Anormal Podcast. It launches in September.

“I’m going to put in two chairs, a little table, and have coffee and bread in exchange for a paranormal story,” Munoz said. “I want to know all the crazy stories that people have and make it a podcast of the scariest stories. … There’s some really creepy ones out there. I already have five people that are willing to be recorded.”