This story first appeared in the Midcoast Update, a newsletter published every Tuesday and Friday morning. Sign up here to receive stories about the midcoast delivered to your inbox each week, along with our other newsletters.
A Liberty-based family of five, headed by matriarch Liv Sanchez, is bringing a taste of its home country delicacies to the midcoast from the comfort of their own kitchen.
After a several-month hiatus, Cyri’s Panadería is back in full swing after the family moved within Liberty and opened up about a month ago. Reignited inspiration for the business, which started in Damariscotta in 2019, came recently after Sanchez’s husband unexpectedly lost his job.
“All of our kids are special needs, so it’s not as simple as him going to find something else when it takes both of us a lot of time to handle their needs,” Sanchez said.
The family has been met with great community support, so much that the business is already planning to expand while selling Guatemalan and Mexican delicacies that are not easily found — if found at all — along the midcoast or anywhere else in Maine.
Sanchez, a self-taught baker who was born in Guatemala, was struck by inspiration in 2019. Her husband was born in Mexico, and learned the craft of Mexican cuisine during his childhood alongside his mother. Their daughter, Cyri, was roughly five years old, and they missed the empanada shops they frequented in North Carolina before moving to Maine.
“With her just wanting to share those with others, we decided, ‘Why don’t we do an in-home bakery to share that joy that she has for those things, since you can’t find them here?’” she said.
The family had made sweet bread for one of their neighbors. Cyri’s enthusiasm for sharing her family’s heritage through baked goods was infectious. It soon turned into something Sanchez and her family found they could share with the community. That’s what they’re striving to do.
The bakery’s specialty is conchas, a Mexican sweet bread with sugar topping, in flavors of cinnamon, chocolate, and vanilla, and meant to be paired with coffee. The bakery has also been met with high demand for tres leches cakes, churros, marranitos, and puerquitos — or “Mexican ginger pigs — a cookie-sized delicacy made with ginger molasses in the shape of a pig.
Sanchez hopes several new menu items will give the business a boost, including imported Guatemalan and Mexican coffee, six new types of bread, including Guatemalan chiquiadores, and several new Mexican cookies, including Mexican wedding cookies, and other baked goods such as mantecadas.
In addition, the business will be offering boutique-style non-edible offerings, including macrame tea coasters and T-shirts. The family also hopes to add a food truck so they can travel the midcoast to share their delicacies. Sanchez anticipates getting one within two years.
The couple’s ultimate goal is independent financial support for their children. The bakery only offers supplemental income right now, as Sanchez works another job in Belfast. She also hopes the bakery can be something that her children take over later in life.
“Doing something like this not only can provide another income,” Sanchez said, “but it’s also very therapeutic to create something with your hands, hand it to somebody else, and bring them joy.”
