A pickup-only Filipino bakery that spent months building a loyal following in Columbus has finally opened a storefront customers can walk into. Manila Bakery debuted its first physical location at 186 N. Wilson Road on August 2, offering ube pandesal, ensaymada, spanish bread, custard cake and other savory breads to a city that has been asking for a table it could sit at.
The bakery's owners, Walter Diaz and Ana, previously ran Manila Bakery as a pickup-only operation before opening the storefront, according to NBC4 WCMH-TV. The station reports the couple opened the storefront only after building a steady base of repeat customers who kept coming back for more. The owners said the bakery aims to share Filipino culture with the Columbus community, a goal that now has a permanent home in a space Yelp shows was previously occupied by Great Western Beverage.
A Menu Built Around Ube
Manila Bakery centers its menu on ube, the purple yam widely used in Filipino desserts, and the storefront's case reflects that focus. Alongside classic pandesal and ube-filled ensaymada, the shop offers ube crinkles, ube macapuno slices, yema cake, black forest cake, custard cake and egg pie, per the same NBC4 account. Savory options round things out with siopao, cheese bread, pande coco and pandesal filled with hotdog, ham and cheese, or tuna.
Demand has already outpaced supply on some days. Per social media, Manila Bakery regularly sells out of items, particularly later in the day, so the bakery accepts pre-orders for customers who want to guarantee they get their favorites. The shop is open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday through Sunday, staying closed Mondays.
Joining an Established Filipino Food Scene
Manila Bakery's arrival adds to a Filipino dining scene that has already taken root in Columbus over the past several years. The city is home to Bonifacio on King Avenue, known for modern Filipino cuisine, and Kuya Ian's Bistro, which specializes in traditional home-style meals, according to a discussion on Reddit. Just east of the city, Manila Hibachi expanded the metro area's regional dining footprint when it opened on East Broad Street in Whitehall in November 2023, as INQUIRER.net USA reported at the time.
Local food media noticed the new bakery's debut, too. Columbus Food Adventures featured Manila Bakery in its Columbus Foodletter this month, calling it the city's newest dedicated Filipino bakery, according to a Facebook post from the outlet. That kind of attention points to a broader appetite: U.S. Census data compiled by Data USA shows foreign-born residents make up 12.4%, or roughly 165,000 people, of Franklin County's population, with Asian residents accounting for more than 74,000 of that total.
Ube's Global Moment Meets a Tightening Supply
Manila Bakery's ube-heavy menu also sits inside a much larger food trend. The global ube market is valued at $520.3 million in 2026 and is projected to reach $1.014 billion by 2036, with bakery and dessert applications holding nearly 30% of that market, according to a report covered by openPR. Foodservice research firm Datassential has separately found that ube menu mentions at U.S. restaurants grew 143% over a four-year span, landing on 1.3% of all domestic menus.
That popularity is colliding with tighter supply overseas. The United States remains the top international market for Philippine ube exports, receiving 45% of exports that topped $3 million in 2025, according to USDA Foreign Agricultural Service data reported by Capital Press. Philippine national ube production has fallen from more than 15,000 metric tons in 2021 to under 12,500 metric tons in 2025 because of weather disruptions and smallholder supply limitations, per reporting from Food Ingredients First, since the crop needs eight to ten months to mature before harvest.
Central Ohio shoppers who want Filipino desserts beyond the bakery case already have other options nearby. Chuchay's Supermarket on West Dublin-Granville Road carries specialized items like yema, mango and ube flan cakes, broadening retail access to the same flavors driving Manila Bakery's menu. For now, though, the Wilson Road storefront gives Columbus something it didn't have before: a dedicated Filipino bakery customers can walk into, browse and, if they're lucky, catch before the ube pandesal runs out.
