Larry’s Bakery Closing After 57 Years
The owners of this family-run wholesale bakery, recently with a lunch truck in Downtown, call it quits to take care of Mom.
Lance Yafuso, whose father, Larry, started the business back in the ’60s, says he’s closing the bakery—and this food truck—for good at the end of May.
Photos: Catherine Toth Fox
Larry’s Bakery continues to break my dessert-loving heart.
When I first discovered the wholesale bakery’s storefront in Salt Lake (by Target) in 2013, I was an instant fan. The bakery’s display cases were stocked with nostalgic desserts—jelly rolls, loaf cakes, manju, glazed doughnuts, apple turnovers, Chantilly cakes. It even made a pastry with a name that just begged you to buy it: Butter Log. It’s a buttery roll of sponge cake with sugar that was the most delicious thing you could ever put in your mouth. I was in dessert heaven.
The following summer, though, the bakery shut its doors. I bemoaned life without butter logs.
That was the first heartbreak.
Then, that November, the bakery reopened in a larger retail space, with the same slew of sweets plus mini cocoa puffs, bentos, Napoleons, bacon-glazed doughnuts and Spam musubi that taste like ones your mom would make. It launched a food truck that started making the rounds in Downtown, which only made it easier for me to get my dessert fix.
People line up at the bakery’s food truck in Downtown. It’s stocked with doughnuts, cakes, cookies and Spam musubi.
Larry’s Bakery has been known for its old-fashioned desserts, including manju, jelly rolls and its popular Chantilly cakes.
But, last week, Lance Yafuso, who runs the bakery his father started in the '60s with his sister, Iris Yafuso-Toguchi, told me the bakery was closing at the end of May. For real, this time. For good.
“We’ve been talking about it for a while now,” he said, grabbing two sticky buns and a musubi for me, as I stared at him, stunned.
“Are you sure? You closed before and then opened again?” I asked. I had to.
“Yes,” he said, quietly. “I’m sure.”
He told me his mother, Irene, now 84, is battling Alzheimer’s and needs constant care.
In a letter to his customer posted on the bakery’s Instagram (@larrysbakery)—which now runs a daily countdown to closing—he writes, “Unfortunately, with all of life’s ups and downs, business has become very challenging.”
The last day for its food truck is May 17. The bakery will be serving its all-time favorites from 6:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. from May 22 to 27, before closing for good.
You only have two more weeks to get your white Chantilly cake, cinnamon sticks, sticky buns and bacon-glazed doughnuts.
Although you never know. Larry’s Bakery could magically reopen again. At least we can hope.
4369 Lawehana St., (808) 422-0059
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