I can still hear the words emanating from my sputtering, 1980s vacuum tube TV; from a robust and suited-up German Moreno yelling his GMA Supershow spiel:
“Maraming, maraming salamat sa aming mga sponsors, Birts Tree [sic] and Merced Bakehouse!”
Forty years later, I cannot believe that one of Kuya Germs’ major sponsors would be an almost-daily staple in my life, and it’s not Birch Tree.
Merced Bakehouse has become my pseudo-diner if I want to sulk on my own with a cup of coffee after a bad day, a takeout place when I don’t want to cook, and a novelty resto that I bring my friends and relatives to if they want to revisit the 80s in the middle of 21st-century Quezon City.
If you’re wondering why I entitled a blog entry about a 1970s bakeshop after a Daniel Day-Lewis film on sex and relationships during the Cold War in Prague, it’s simply because I cannot think of any other title for it at the moment. But if you’re going to complain about how un-literary it is, I admonish you to leave this page…now.
Back to Merced, and a bit of its history. Dr. Mila Daez Sevilla opened a bakeshop in 1972, and named it after her mother (the Mrs. Merced in this story). This was the time when Goldilocks had not yet gone mainstream (founded 1966), and there were few large bakeshops; Merced was one of them. They delivered pan de sal to Philam Homes nearby, and served up pastries to customers who would drive by their store. I remember back in the province, aunts venturing to Quezon City would bring back pasalubong of bear claws and the coveted Beehive (more on that later!).
The restaurant is decked out in heavy metal chairs and tables, and in yellow, peach, and mint green; the type of palette you’d see in your Tita’s home. If someone is threatening renovation, I beg you, as a nostalgic interior designer, not to touch it—as this particular space takes you back to another time and place.
They do not serve salted-caramel lattes, and no trendy kouign-amann either; and thank God for that!
What you will get are just good, old-fashioned pastries from your childhood: soft and sweet bicho-bicho, fluffy mamon for P40, overstuffed bear claws, silky egg pie, delicate meringue drops, and fruit tarts that taste like Christmas.
The meals are just as familiar; beef brisket is a filling best-seller, along with pancit palabok as a second-runner-up, served with a buttered piece of toast like the good ol’ days. Please do not expect a Michelin-star meal—there is a time and place for that! This is just plain and simple comfort food, which they have been serving up for decades.
And the cakes! For weddings, they bring out towering feats of engineering decked out in whipped marshmallow icing; for birthdays, they have the sweet round cakes with loving dedications at shockingly low prices. They have pretty cakes for different occasions, too, which they could customize.
I bought a dedication marshmallow cake for my mom’s 90th birthday, and her fellow nonagenarian guests delighted in the taste, which they all said had brought them back to 40 years ago (diabetes medicines be damned!).
And we must mention, of course, their famous Beehive, a pastry concoction of a brownie and a towering marshmallow coated in dark chocolate. A couple of years ago, an influencer dropped by and took a TikTok video of the Beehive which last saw popularity in the 1970s. Of course, Gen Z diners responded, and flocked to the EDSA branch of Merced, to the shock and delight of the Senior Citizen and middle-aged regulars (me included!).
Maybe this is what gives Merced its staying power: that nostalgic charm that keeps both longtime patrons and young diners coming back. Now pass me that slice of egg pie.
Merced Bakehouse (Main Branch) 869 EDSA, Brgy. West Triangle, Quezon City (near DILG and Quezon Ave). They also have branches at Veterans Medical and Capitol Medical.
Rachelle Medina 