State senator honors La Plaza Bakery

GREENFIELD – The La Plaza Bakery location in Greenfield was honored by State Senator Anthony Cannella as Small Business of the Year for district twelve.

A coffee mixer event was held on June 22 by the senator to commemorate the business and discuss the budget and legislative issues going on at the state level.

Cannella chose La Plaza for what he called an impressive business, “I choose them because I am so impressed with their business, but I found out they weren’t much of a small business. They have over 115 employees and all the different locations so I should have chosen them for my large business,” he joked.

Aside from the business aspect, Cannella applauded owner Raul Rodriguez’s involvement in the community. “It’s an impressive business,” said Cannella. “It’s a great business, great product and more importantly their service to the community and involvement and the various things is very impressive. And I think that every business, whether they are small medium or large, strive to be.”

The Rodriquez family runs the La Plaza Bakery chain, but Raul Rodriquez manages the location in Greenfield. Of the award, he said, “I am very happy to be honored. It’s been thirty years and it’s been a coincidence that we got honored on our 30th year. I am very happy to have served the valley, especially Greenfield, for 30 years.”

He added, “We believe in our community and it’s very nice to get recognized like this by someone like Senator Cannella.”

La Plaza Bakery has six bakery locations. The last location built was the one in Greenfield, about ten years ago. Rodriguez said, “Greenfield was our last one, but we have been growing in terms of our sales.”

As of now, La Plaza employs 119 people, 90 full time and 29 part time.

“It feels good to employ so many people and we are on the verge of becoming a medium business, but we don’t want to. We want to stay a small business,” said Rodriguez. “You get to see every face in town, almost every face, and you get to know people, get involved and being in the retail in the baking, you get to feel part of town real quick.”



For the complete article see the 06-27-2012 issue.

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