Dawn Hernandez serves up a variety of New York style pastries, breads and cookies, including festive party platters, at Dawn’s NY Bakery on Central (photo by Darryl Webb for North Central News).
Dawn Hernandez will tell you that baking is in her blood – a legacy from her parents, who opened their first bakery in 1985 and spent more than three decades in the business.
Hernandez and her three sisters grew up in the back of their parents’ stores, sometimes napping on sacks of flour while mom and dad mixed and kneaded bread dough, rolled out and decorated cookies and filled pastries with custard and jams.
Pat and Hugh McGurgan moved their family to Arizona in 1997, and a few years later opened their New York West bakery in Sun City. They retired and sold that business, and in 2023 Hernandez decided to open her own shop, planning to locate in the West Valley until delays and costs in getting inspections and approvals caused her to look elsewhere.
She found an existing bakery, formerly Karl’s, in a shopping mall on Central Avenue, just south of Dunlap.
“The owner wanted to sell, and it already had a lot of the components I needed,” Hernandez said.
She opened her New York bakery soon after, bringing some of her parents’ team with her. “Some of them have been with us 20-plus years,” she said. They do the mixing and baking of breads and pastries. “My job is to do all the cookies and all the decorating and finishing – to make things pretty.”
What makes it “New York?”
“Just traditional New York pastries and breads,” Hernandez said. “New York has so many ethnicities, and that’s what we have here. We don’t do a lot of trendy new things.”
Patrons will find rugelach, hamantaschen (buttery cookie dough triangles filled with jam), sfogliatella (shell-shaped pastry with a cream filling), Linzer tarts, strudel, cannolis, eclairs, Danish, bear claws, croissants, Italian rum cake and cannoli cake, and cookies of every description, along with kaiser rolls and weck, sourdough, challah, pumpernickel, and French and Italian breads.
“We do Italian and rye breads every day, challah on Fridays and the weekends, and sourdough starting on Thursday and through the weekends,” Hernandez said.
With the holiday season on the horizon, Dawn’s NY Bakery will add specialty items – think pumpkin flavors, gingerbread and mince pie – to their already extensive menu of baked goods (photo by Darryl Webb for North Central News).
Heaping trays of cookies fill the cases – pignolis studded with pine nuts, amaretti, macaroons, decorated butter cookies of every variety – and festive party platters top the shelves.
“When people come in, they say, ‘There are so many things, I can’t choose,’” Hernandez said.
Customer favorites include the myriad pastries – almond and fruit tarts and cannolis – and cheesecake. Party platters are another favorite, Hernandez said. “A lot of our customers special-order platters. They’re really popular.”
With the holidays coming on, the pace is picking up, with pumpkin taking the lead.
“We make a really delicious pumpkin pie – a lot of pies in general – along with pumpkin loaf cake, pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin muffins,” Hernandez said. “We do a lot of holiday cookies, and on Halloween I make decorated doughnuts. We stay with the pumpkin theme all the way through Christmas. We also do gingerbread and old-fashioned mince pies.”
All that baking makes for a challenging life, Hernandez said.
“We always started early at my parents’ bakery, at 2 a.m., so we could open early and serve the people from hospital across the street.”
That discipline carried forward to her North Phoenix store, which opens at 5 a.m. for bleary-eyed customers on their way to work and in need of something sweet.
The hard work has rewards, as Hernandez points out in her online bio: “To me success means more than making money. When a customer feels welcome and comfortable or tells me a black and white moon cookie reminds them of their childhood, I feel like I just might have made someone’s life a little better. While running a business involves your head, baking takes heart.
“I have three children of my own, and they’ve also caught naps on flour sacks. Raising them in the bakery has taught them the importance of teamwork, hard work and passion. My oldest is a fireman now, but he’s swept floors, emptied trash and can make a tasty eclair. My second works full time for the state of Arizona and will be helping out on weekends at the bakery when she can. My youngest is still in school, and hasn’t chosen a path yet, but she’s learned important skills and values at the bakery.
“My parents retired in 2022. I was happy for them, but felt sad about the old-school bakery tradition coming to an end. It didn’t take too long for me to realize I could carry on that tradition. I am excited to start fresh and serve the central Phoenix community.”
Dawn’s NY Bakery, 111 E. Dunlap Ave., is open 5 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday, and 6 a.m. to 3 p.m., Sunday. For information, call 480-687-2566 or visit www.dawnsnybakery.com.
