Fifteen people were already lined up outside a new bakery on Campbell Road in Far North Dallas before it opened its doors at 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday. By the time Vecinos Bakehouse closed at 4:30 p.m. that same day, only a dozen items remained on the shelves.
The bakery, located at 6090 Campbell Road near Preston Road, is the work of David and Ker Madrid, according to Vecinos Bakehouse's own site, which describes the shop as a neighborhood spot where everything is mixed, shaped and baked by hand in small batches each morning before the doors open. As reported by The Dallas Morning News, David Madrid and his team baked roughly 600 additional pastries on opening day just to keep up, and the shop still sold out of pastries and bread within hours.
A Decade in the Making for a 42-Year-Old Baker
David Madrid, 42, had wanted to open Vecinos for more than a decade before Wednesday's debut, per the same Dallas Morning News account. He once worked as a high school counselor before leaving that job to attend baking school, eventually training and teaching at the San Francisco Baking Institute, according to the bakery's own website. The name itself carries meaning: Vecinos means neighbors in Spanish, and Madrid created the shop as a bakery for nearby residents rather than a citywide draw.
“Vecinos is a neighborhood spot, not a destination bakery,” Madrid said, per the Dallas Morning News reporting. He also offered a simple line about his craft: “Practice makes progress.”
From Mentor at The Village to His Own Shop
Before striking out on his own, Madrid led an expansive baking program for new restaurants at The Village, the same report notes. It was there that he met and mentored Yonathan Bustillo, who had cooked at Uchi, Macellaio and Mot Hai Ba before shifting into baking. Dallas CultureMap previously detailed that mentorship, reporting that head baker David Madrid, who also started out as a regular cook, took Bustillo under his wing, and that Dallas CultureMap credited his dedication and precision with propelling him to the position of lead baker. CultureMap also reported separately that Bustillo switched from restaurant cooking to baking in 2021.
Madrid's baking résumé stretches back further still. A 2016 D Magazine profile documented him running Wheat & Sour, an artisan baking business based in the Cedars, long before Vecinos took shape.
An Italian Oven and an 800-Square-Foot Room
The centerpiece of the new shop is an oven that cost $135,000 and was shipped to Texas from Italy, containing 27,000 pounds of concrete, according to the Dallas Morning News account. The bakery's dining room measures 800 square feet, and the shop offers multigrain sourdough, pumpkin snickerdoodles, brioche tarts, kolaches, croissants and empanadas. Vecinos operates 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays and is closed Mondays and Tuesdays, both the Dallas Morning News and the bakery's own site confirm. Vecinos itself puts it simply: it bakes until it sells out, so mornings have the best selection.
D Magazine had previewed the shop earlier in the month, reporting that Vecinos held a soft opening with breads, pastries and sandwiches, according to D Magazine, and describing Madrid as a longtime local baker perhaps best known for his time as head baker for The Village and its restaurants. One customer, Jake Friedman, described his breakfast simply as yummy, according to the Dallas Morning News, a review that tracked with the sellout crowd that showed up to see whether a decade-long dream could hold up on its first real morning.
