Cinderella Russian Bakery & Cafe opens its second location on Friday at 2937 24th St., the former home of La Victoria Panadería, closing out an eight-year saga of boycott threats, pandemic loan freezes, and a fraught relationship with one of San Francisco's most tightly guarded Latino cultural corridors. The 73-year-old bakery, known for its burnt honey cake and rye bread, will finally have a Mission District outpost to match its original Richmond District shop.
The new 3,500-square-foot space dedicates two-thirds of its footprint to production, with 32 indoor seats and about 20 more on the sidewalk, according to The San Francisco Standard. Owner Mike Fishman told the outlet that the bakery had simply outgrown its original space years ago, and the Mission shop, designed by Chris Sullivan, will let Cinderella expand its wholesale and catering operations alongside a full second kitchen for cake decorating.
Fishman and his wife, Marika, bought the building in 2018, a month after La Victoria Bakery — founded in 1951 by Gabriel Maldonado as the first Latino-owned business on the 24th Street corridor — closed after 67 years amid a family legal dispute, according to SocketSite. La Victoria had moved to 2937 24th St. in 1955 and operated there for decades before Mission Local reported that Fishman purchased the mixed-use building for roughly $3 million after it was listed at $3.4 million.
A Boycott Threat and a Reconciliation
The purchase set off immediate backlash. Calle 24 Latino Cultural District threatened to boycott Cinderella Bakery, with the group's president, Erick Arguello, arguing at the time that a non-Latino legacy business from another neighborhood did not belong in the district, per Mission Local. Marika Fishman has said the family never intended to displace anyone, telling The San Francisco Standard, “We didn't kick anyone out,” and describing Cinderella as, in her words, a true San Francisco business.
San Francisco's 24th Street Special Use District regulations required any new business moving into a former legacy business space to adopt at least four of six cultural preservation conditions, such as partnering with local community groups or showcasing local Latino artwork, according to Mission Local's 2025 reporting. The Fishmans agreed to more than four of those conditions, and the storefront now features a mural by Precita Eyes Muralists outside the shop. By last year, Arguello had reversed course, telling Eater SF that everything was fine and that Cinderella had integrated into the community; the Calle 24 president has since welcomed the bakery to the neighborhood and apologized to the Fishmans, per the research record.
Pandemic Delays and a Long Pause
The path to opening was not just about neighborhood politics. Mike and Marika Fishman pulled permits for the second location in December 2019, only to be unable to secure a loan the following spring as COVID-19 upended lending, forcing them to pause the project until 2024. The building itself came with more than a bakery footprint — it includes three residential apartments and two long-running ground-floor storefronts, Texis Jewelry and Gemini Barber, whose leases Fishman kept in place without raising rent when he bought the property, according to Mission Local's 2018 coverage.
La Victoria's own story didn't end with the sale. A former employee reopened the bakery in 2019 at 3249 24th St. near Capp Street before it later relocated again, this time to the Bayview, according to local historical business records.
From Moscow to Harbin to the Mission
Cinderella's roots stretch back to 1953, when the Kaluda family opened the original Balboa Street bakery. Sisters Lydia Repin and Eugenia Belonogoff, who took over the business in 1970, were Russian refugees who had fled the 1917 Russian Revolution to Harbin, China, before immigrating to San Francisco after China's 1949 revolution, Mission Local reported. The Fishman family bought Cinderella Bakery itself in 1991, and Mike and Marika took full ownership in 2008.
Mike Fishman immigrated to San Francisco in 1987 at age 16 after growing up in Moscow, while Marika arrived in the city in 1980. The bakery was added to San Francisco's Legacy Business Registry on August 14, 2017, according to SF Heritage, which recognized it as the oldest authentic Russian bakery in the Bay Area.
What's on the Menu
The Mission location will serve the same menu as the Richmond shop: borscht, beef stroganoff, chicken Kiev, and golubtsy cabbage rolls, alongside piroshki filled with egg and green onion, beef and cheddar, or beef and gorgonzola. The bakery's marquee item remains its burnt honey cake, built from six thin layers with buttercream filling, and its rye bread, made with 90 percent rye flour.
Cinderella also sells frozen pelmeni and hamantaschen cookies year-round, and pours coffee, tea, beer, wine, kvass, and kompot. The bakery bakes 12,000 pounds of kulich bread each Easter season, sold primarily to grocery stores, part of a wholesale business the Fishmans started in the 1990s that now delivers packaged baked goods daily to specialty grocers stretching from San Jose to Sacramento, according to the bakery's own website.
Looking ahead, the bakery plans to expand its bread offerings and may add soft serve topped with cherries and crushed cookies. With a dedicated second kitchen in the Mission, Cinderella also plans to decorate cakes on-site — a capacity the original Richmond space never had room for.
-4.webp?w=160&h=400&fit=crop&crop=edges)