85° Bakery has soft opening in Palm Desert
Gavin Nguyen
PALM DESERT, Calif. (KESQ) – Swaths of people rushed to Palm Desert today as a popular Taiwanese bakery, 85°C Bakery Cafe, opened in Palm Desert.
The cafe is located within the Desert Gateway shopping plaza at the corner of Monterey and Dinah Shore.
During its soft opening period, it will be open from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. After its grand opening in November, it will be open 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. daily.
Management at the cafe said the soft opening was to help train new employees as they familiarize themselves with the menu and workflow.
They acknowledged that it’s a unique opportunity to provide new, Asian-inspired flavors to the Coachella Valley population.
Nhi Nguyen, one of the corporate trainers working with new hires at the store, said, “We have over 50 varieties of cake, bread, coffee, and teas. [It] brings a little bit of diversity of the Asian culture into the Coachella Valley since it is – I feel like it is a little bit limited on the Asian cuisines and whatnot.”
Customers agree – many of whom waited hours in line to get a taste.
Nguyen noticed some customers camping out as early as three hours before the bakery opened its doors Tuesday morning at 10:00 a.m.
“It’s been a very exciting day, extremely busy as well.”
Those customers expressed their desire to try new and more diverse cuisine. Citlaly Zamora, a lifelong Coachella Valley resident, said excitement is growing valley-wide for new foods to try.
“Before, I had to go all the way to L.A. to find, like, good ramen places, good coffee, or just kind of that, you know, Asian type of food,” Zamora explained. “Hopefully [we’re] going to get some more places so we can, you know, just have that variety and culture differences here in the valley.”
Sabrina Eanes and Juan Agredano emerged from the store with two boxes full of pastries. Eanes, a local baker from Desert Hot Springs, said she wanted to support the new local bakery. And for Agredano, he said, “To have something like this come in [is exciting] because the desert is not that big and everybody’s probably been everywhere already.”
This 85°C location is the first in California to feature a drive-thru – although the drive-thru remains closed for now.
Management teased that the grand opening will include giveaways of T-shirts, bucket hats, and discount vouchers.
We’ll have updates on this new bakery already drawing significant attention right here on KESQ. Stay with us for the latest.