JEFFERSON PARISH, La. — Haga clic aquí para leer este artículo en español.
Norma’s International Market and Bakery, with its cases full of perfect pastries and aisles of groceries, looks impressive. The story of how it came to be is even more so.
Norma Castillo, her husband Lorenzo, and their young son came to the U.S. from Honduras in November of 1980. They were seeking dialysis treatments for Lorenzo, something Norma said “didn’t exist in [her] country at that time.”
Things moved quickly from there. In March, she gave birth to their second son. In June, they agreed to take over a Cuban bakery in New Orleans on one condition– that the owner stay on temporarily to show Norma how to make bread. “He stayed with me for six months, and in that six months I had to learn everything,” she said.
Norma put in 18-hour days to grow the bakery into a success. But Lorenzo kept getting sicker, and after a few years, they had to sell it so Norma could focus on caring for him. He later passed away.
The dream of opening another business stayed with her. “I was always saying, ‘maybe one day I can have the bakery again,’” she said. In the meantime, she attended Delgado Community College to learn English and business management.
Then, in 2003, she “had a loan and some savings and said, ‘now is the time.’” She opened Norma’s Sweets in a small space on Georgia Avenue in Kenner.
Hurricane Katrina hit two years later. The bakery survived but the family’s home did not. “I got depressed,” Norma said, choking up, “I didn’t even want to start again.” She did, though, and in the months after the storm Norma’s Sweets was one of the few businesses in the area still selling food.
Years later, it still holds an important place in the community and beyond. “We’ve had people say ‘your mom did our wedding, your mom did our first baby’s birthday,’” said Norma’s son Jose Castillo, who runs the store’s second location on Bienville Street in New Orleans that opened in 2011.
For the growing number of people in Jefferson Parish who are from Latin America, and for those who have roots there, he said the bakery is glad to “be able to provide things that people are accustomed to eating in their country.” One customer told WWL Louisiana in Spanish that he comes often with his young grandson or a group of friends for breakfast.
For people in the area not accustomed to Latin flavors, the bakery can be a gateway. Take the king cake, for instance, which is filled with guava and cream cheese, a combination common in Cuban pastries.
Several years ago, Norma moved to a bigger location down the street from the original bakery. The two-story building holds a grocery store, a deli, and the bakery counter, with space upstairs to make baked goods.
Norma hopes her two sons will continue to expand the business once she retires. She said it could happen “soon,” while Jose said, laughing, that his mom “has been saying that for years.” He thinks his own children may be interested in helping out soon, making the business a multi-generational family legacy.
Both Norma’s International Market and Bakery in Kenner and Norma’s Sweets in Mid-City are open seven days a week.
► Get breaking news from your neighborhood delivered directly to you by downloading the new FREE WWL-TV News app now in the IOS App Store or Google Play.