A bakery and restaurant chain from Guatemala is expanding its presence in Dallas: San Martín Bakery, which made its U.S. debut in Dallas in 2018, will open a second DFW location, this one at Prestonwood near Addison at 5407 Belt Line Rd., taking over what was previously a location of Coal Vines Pizza, next door to EVO Cinemas.

According to spokesman Santiago Castillo, they're still working through permits, but anticipate they'll open in the fall.

"When we considered where to expand, Addison was always on our list, and that's also the feedback we've received from customers," he says.

Their location will also benefit from its proximity to Work/Shop, a new mixed-use development going up on the other side of the movie theater.

San Martin is a highly sophisticated concept offering European-styled baked goods including sourdough breads, croissants, and other puff pastries, along with a cozy cafe open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

It was founded in 1974, and operates nearly 40 locations across Guatemala and El Salvador. Although they are a chain, they pride themselves on keeping each location unique.

Dallas landed on their radar after Castillo attended Southern Methodist University. Uptown opened in 2018 and was their first location outside of Central America.

Every location features a combination bakery to the left and cafe to the right, with the bakery following a self-serve format where you grab a basket and load it with your bread and pastry selections, such as amazing apple croissants, all made to European standards.

Their cafe menu includes burgers, sandwiches, wraps, and pastas. There is soup served in a round boule loaf; salads; queso; sandwiches on ciabatta bread, and sub sandwiches on long baguettes. There are rustic pizzas, baked in a stone oven.

There is breakfast, with a menu that includes quesadillas, pupusas topped with sunny-side eggs, chilaquiles, eggs with fried plantains, benedicts, omelets, pancakes topped with Nutella, oatmeal, and French toast. There's also beer, wine, and sangria, and smoothies made with yogurt.

Their combination of good food, extended customer-friendly hours, and easygoing atmosphere have earned them many accolades including making the list for Best Desserts, Best Places To Take Holiday Visitors, and a nomination for CultureMap's Tastemaker Awards for Restaurant of the Year in 2020.

Given the dominant role that Guatemala plays as a major coffee grower, they are rightfully proud of their coffee, and Santiago says that the Prestonwood location will have an even bigger commitment.

"Guatemala has the best coffee in the world, and we work directly with farmers and roast our own beans," Castillo says. "People can now enjoy the best coffees of Guatemala in our stores, and that used to be unheard of."

A cookie shop whose cookies are brimming with big chunks of chocolate is opening in Dallas' Snider Plaza: Called Ben's Cookies, it's an international chain founded in Oxford, England, that's opening a location at 3406 Rosedale Ave., kitty-corner to Bubba's Cooks Country and across from SMU.

According to owner Truett Horne, the shop will open this weekend.

Horne brought the concept from England to the U.S. in 2022 when he opened the first outlet at Grapevine Mills Mall in Grapevine. This will be his second location.

Ben's cookies follow classic chocolate chip recipes, but instead of chocolate chips, they use big chunks of chocolate.

Staple flavors include milk chocolate chunk, dark chocolate chunk, white chocolate chunk, and double chocolate chunk with chocolate chunks in a chocolate cookie base.

Other flavors include:

• white chocolate & cranberry
• white chocolate & macadamia
• dark chocolate & ginger
• dark chocolate & nuts

There are also non-chocolate-chunk cookies including oatmeal raisin, peanut butter, lemon, ginger, coconut, and a snickerdoodle cookie that Horne introduced in late 2022 which has been a smash hit.

One surprise at the Grapevine shop has been the brisk sales in frozen treats including shakes and ice cream, including their "cookie monster," a decadent combination of cookies and ice cream. They also ship cookies both locally and nationally to Ben's fans across the U.S.

The first Ben's opened in Oxford in 1984; there are now 60 locations across England, Scotland, Singapore, Dubai, Kuwait, Thailand, Korea, the Philippines, and Japan.

Horne discovered the cookies while in college.

"I became familiar with Ben's when I studied abroad in Oxford, home to their first location, and fell in love with their cookies," he says. "They're very focused on ingredients and the process."

Their cookies are big, and in the span of soft to crisp, they fall on the cakey side. "They say that, if a cookie and a cake had a baby, it would be Ben's," says Horne, a former marketing exec who worked for companies like JCPenney and McKinsey & Co.

Finding a family-friendly location was a priority, which is what led to Snider Plaza, where the shop is going into a former daycare center which has been completely remodeled.

"I like that Snider Plaza has a sense of heritage, with long-standing retailers who've been tenants for a while," he says. "Being across from SMU means that we can serve the college community, I think that will be fun."

"And this felt like the right place, like it was made for us," he says. "It's a brick building and aesthetically it feels perfect. It just feels like a bakery."

Award-winning Dallas bakery Kuluntu Bakery is hosting a new monthly event that'll combine sweet pastries and community gathering.

Called the "Community Bake," it'll take place on the first Saturday of every month at their Oak Cliff headquarters, beginning on March 4.

From 10 am to 12 pm, they'll have pastries, coffee, creative activities for kids and adults, self-serve cold brew and water, and most importantly an opportunity to gather with neighbors and the community.

The new event represents a shift for the bakery and fulfills its goals to not only bake great bread but also bring people together, says founder Stephanie Leichtle-Chalklen.

Founded in 2018, Kuluntu is a cottage food business that sells breads and pastries, to be picked up once a week. Their selection is limited and changes every week, but always includes sourdough breads, pastries, cakes, and seasonal goods.

Despite not having a brick-and-mortar location, Kuluntu has racked up numerous awards including an impressive ranking on a Food & Wine list of the Best Breads in Every State, a 2023 nomination for a James Beard Award, and a CultureMap Tastemaker Awards nomination for Best Pastry Chef.

Their model has been to send out an email listing their offerings every week, and customers pick up their orders on Thursdays.

Now, just for the first week of the month, the pickup takes place on Saturday, and customers are encouraged to stick around and hang out. If they want to eat their pastries on-site, there'll be picnic benches, with water and free coffee, "BYOmug."

"The idea is to have a more intentional space for the community to gather," Leichtle-Chalklen says. "I'm also trying to get out of the kitchen and allocate my time a little differently. It'll just be one week out of the month. If people want to eat pastries there, they can, and coffee will be on the house."

"The rest of the month, we'll still have Thursday pickup, but we won't have pastry every week like we’ve been doing, it'll be more focused on bread, and we'll make Saturdays a big pastry day," she says.

The deadline for pre-orders is Monday, so that ship has sailed for the March 4 event. However, they will also have a few baked items for sale, first-come first-serve, for those who did not place an order online. (And for future offerings, you can place your order here.)

"We'll also be frying up some little doughnuts, a South African specialty called Cape Malay koesisters, those will be on the house," she says. "We want to encourage people to come. This is about gathering together."

An international bakery-café concept is expanding its North Texas presence: Paris Baguette has opened a location in Grand Prairie, at 2609 W. Pioneer Pkwy., in the parking lot in front of the Asia Times Square center, where it occupies a new mini-building along with a Kickin' Crab seafood spot and a 7 Leaves Tea shop.

According to a company representative, the bakery opened in January. This marks their third location in DFW, following Lewisville which opened in 2019, and Carrollton, which opened in 2021.

Paris Baguette is known for its cakes, pastries, croissants, and breads. It was founded in 1988 by Korean businessman Hur Young-in, who started out with locations in South Korea, Singapore, Vietnam, and China.

They're owned by Paris Croissant, a division of SPC Group based in Seoul; their America headquarters are in Moonachie, N.J.

Their lineup includes classic French-style goods that sometimes incorporate Asian ingredients, such as buns stuffed with red-bean filling.

Many of their items are croissant-based, and more than a few incorporate savory ingredients like sausage and crab croquettes. They also have doughnuts, cronuts, cream puffs, and cream-filled pastries of all kinds, plus coffee drinks to go with.

There are super pretty fruit tarts, and people rave about their statuesque often multi-layer cakes.

As is the case with this style of bakery, most of the pastries are self-serve; you load them onto a tray and head for the cashier.

The first U.S. location opened in Los Angeles in 2005, one of many Asian-founded bakeries that specializes in French-style goods such as Mozart and Taiwanese bakery chain 85C.

They started franchising in the U.S. in 2015, and have since established 120 locations across the country, including 24 new cafes that opened in 2022 alone. That includes a location in Katy, their first in the Houston market which has been in the works for nearly two years, bringing the total number of locations in Texas to 20, either open or in development.