In the Mexican pastry shop Bombon, on 18th Street just east of Ashland, delicate sweets and extravagantly decorated cakes fill a curved, sleek display case. Brightly painted walls alternate with stretches of exposed brick, hung with photos of more pastry, photos of Mexican markets, and specialized kitchen utensils like a molinillo, the wooden dowel used to make the foam on top of Mexican hot chocolate. The elegant offerings and upscale decor might seem out of place on a stretch of 18th Street that’s in need of a face-lift. But as owners Laura Cid Pfeiffer and Luis Perea explain, that’s not really the case.
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“In the Mexican culture, there’s always enough money for happy occasions,” Pfeiffer says. “A christening, a girl’s quinceanera [15th birthday], a wedding–there’s always a party. And in Mexico no celebration is complete without cakes and candies.”
They started baking in a production kitchen that’s a ten-minute drive from where Bombon now stands, and their client list grew to include Marshall Field’s and the Francesca’s in Forest Park. Meanwhile, they found the storefront in Pilsen. “With the Spanish-speaking community as a whole becoming more affluent, we felt it was a good opportunity,” says Perea. They spent long days and endless gallons of paint and wood stain bringing the storefront to its current condition.
