BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — By the time they unlock the doors at Smith’s Bakery on Union Avenue at 5:30 a.m., most of the 25-person crew has already been on the job for 3 -½ hours, mixing, kneading, baking, frying, slathering and sprinkling.
And they – or their predecessors – have been doing it for three generations.
“This is our 80th year and I’ve only been here 80 years,” said owner Jim Balmain, whose father, Roy Balmain, partnered with a Porterville grocery store owner named Howard Smith exactly eight decades ago…