Peter's Bakery is Silicon Valley's oldest family-owned bakery

Tony Peters, born in San Jose in 1907 to a Portuguese immigrant family, learned the bakery trade on weekends at his uncle's San Francisco shop before opening the first Peters' Bakery at Delmas and San Carlos Streets on April 15, 1936. Two years later he opened a second location on Alum Rock Avenue — decades before San Jose became synonymous with the technology industry that now surrounds it.

The downtown shop was sold in 1947 to one of Tony's apprentices and became Dick's Bakery; Peters' Bakery itself moved that same year to a building on Alum Rock Avenue that still houses it today. The bakery is best known for its Burnt Almond Cake, a regional specialty that's become the default birthday and celebration cake for generations of San Jose families.

Tony Peters trained more than 100 bakers over his career, many of whom went on to open their own shops. He passed away in 1996, sixty years after opening his first location. Today, Peters' Bakery is owned and operated by two of his grandchildren — making it, by the bakery's own account, the oldest family-owned bakery in Silicon Valley.

In a region where the average business lifespan is measured in tech cycles rather than generations, Peters' Bakery stands out as one of the few local names that predates the valley's transformation entirely — the same building, the same recipes, and the same family name on the door for nearly ninety years.