19 million views on TikTok led to lines out the door for this North Texas bakery
Confectionery enthusiasts love Mexican desserts like conchas and Japanese treats like milk bread, but what about the two fused together?
Pan Pan Bakery and Cafe, at 2110 Roosevelt Drive Suite A in Dalworthington Gardens, filled a gap in the Dallas-Fort Worth bakery landscape that many didn’t know existed: a Mexican-Japanese fusion bakery. Pan Pan blew up online overnight due to a video that raked in 19 million views and 3 million likes on TikTok.
Laura Molinar is the shop’s 21-year-old owner. Her Mexican upbringing and four trips to Japan greatly influenced her love for baking. She started selling pan dulce and cupcakes at pop-up shops when she was 15. After working at multiple different bakeries, she found her passion to open her own.
In August 2024, she opened Pan Pan. Now, a little more than a year later, Molinar has found herself expanding to a ghost kitchen across the street, hiring more baristas and bakers and asking her vendors for 10 times the quantity of what she ordered before.
These days, many eateries tend to go viral because of the “Keith Lee effect,” but Pan Pan didn’t need a famous influencer to promote them. The pastries, matchas and coffees speak for themselves.
Here’s a look at Molinar’s business and what Pan Pan has to offer.
How viral bakery Pan Pan got started
Molinar has always been a baker.
“When I was younger, it was boxed stuff. I was mostly playing with colors and textures back then. Like, how can I make this fun zebra rainbow cake?” Molinar told the Star-Telegram in an interview.
“Whenever I started getting older, it was more like going into the science of baking, and how can I get the results after several rounds of testing.”
She worked at some mom-and-pop bakeries, as well as Nothing Bundt Cakes, Cinneholic and Peach Cobbler Factory. This is where she really learned the behind-the-scenes of how bakeries functioned.
Then when it came to her own creations at her pop-ups, she would make cupcakes, tres leches cakes and some pan dulce and marranitos.
“A lot of my current menu items pull a lot of inspiration, if not the same recipes as what I was doing,” said Molinar.
The name of her bakery — Pan Pan — was an idea from her father. It comes from the Japanese and Spanish words for bread. “Pan” means bread in both languages.
Molinar sources her bright green matcha from Japan. The coffee beans are from Mexico. All pastries and breads are made fresh in-house. And though Pan Pan had to up its production due to the shop’s virality, Molinar refused to compromise the quality of her ingredients.
“I went out of my way to talk to my wholesale distributors, all of them, [to say] I need to up the quantity. It took a little bit longer,” Molinar said. “But it was the best that I can and not taking no for an answer was really important, because I won’t take lower quality. I just won’t.”
Molinar knows her patience pays off because she’s had customers tell her, with tears in their eyes, that her treats taste just like their late grandma’s.
“Whenever we do things with the utmost respect and try to celebrate that tradition, those people who made those traditions come and help propel us forward in that way,” she said.
Pan Pan Bakery and Cafe menu
The menu features items like a matcha concha — a combination of Japanese matcha flavors and milk bread consistency with the traditional Mexican concha shape and sugary topping.
There is also dulce de leche conchas, oreo conchas and marranitos, a Mexican molasses cookie.
As for Japanese desserts, Pan Pan has an everything bagel shio-pan (a Japanese soft, buttery, salty bread roll) filled with a whipped cream cheese. There are also ham and cheese and plain shio-pans.
For some Tex-Mex influence, the bakery sells a chorizo jalapeno and cheese kolache. The chorizo is sourced from a Mexican meat market based in Dallas that makes a spicy chorizo special for Pan Pan. They also have pecan cinnamon rolls influenced by Molinar’s mom’s recipe.
When it comes to sweets, Molinar’s kryptonite is cookies. So of course the bakery has chocolate-chip, s’mores, stuffed Nutella and pecan chocolate chip cookies. The Japanese influence creeps in again with a matcha white chocolate chip cookie. And, as an ode to Molinar’s Mexican culture, the shop has a tri color polvorón (Spanish shortbread) cookie.
As for the cafe, Pan Pan sells matchas, coffees and lemonades. The lemonade recipe was created by Molinar’s 7-year-old niece. The matcha and coffee flavors rotate seasonally, however some fan favorite/notable offerings include:
- Pan Pan latte: Honey, cinnamon, espresso, milk of choice.
- Banana bread latte
- Cinnamon roll latte with homemade cinnamon roll syrup
- Tres leches latte
- Horchata latte
- Horchata matcha
- Banana cream matcha
- Raspberry matcha
- Banderita matcha: House-made strawberry puree, milk of choice and matcha foam to look like the Mexico flag.
- Hojicha latte (Hojicha is green tea roasted for a toastier flavor)
- Homemade auga de Jamaica: Made by Molinar’s mom, hibiscus drink sweetened by agave.
- Homemade horchata
A pro tip: If you get to Pan Pan in the mornings, you may find leftover items from the day before for a discounted price.
Pan Pan Bakery and Cafe is open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. every day but Sunday.
This story was originally published September 22, 2025 at 11:56 AM.