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<\/p>\nLa Segunda is celebrating its 110th anniversary July 18, but no one is actually sure of the exact year the family-owned Tampa Bay bakery was launched. Nor does anyone outside the inner circle know the precise bake time of La Segunda\u2019s famous Cuban loaves.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not even certain how founder Juan Mor\u00e9 learned how to make Cuban bread.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Copeland More at the St. Petersburg La Segunda Cuban Bakery & Cafe. Catalyst file photo.<\/p>\n
There are a lot of unknowns in the Mor\u00e9 family story, but one thing that\u2019s for sure is that they\u2019ve been at the top of the baking game since they tapped into the market sometime in the early 1900s.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMy great-grandfather was born in Spain and came to Cuba to fight in the Spanish-American War,\u201d said Copeland More (the family dropped the accent many years ago), Juan\u2019s great-grandson and the current owner and operator of La Segunda Bakery & Cafe.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot is lost in the history, but at some point he learned how to make Cuban bread. And then either when the war was over, or sometime after he served, he came to Ybor City with the huge rush of the cigar industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cYbor City was the world\u2019s largest producer of cigars at that point in time, so it had a booming economy. His trade was making Cuban bread, and that\u2019s what he did.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bakery has always been a family business. Juan passed the bakery down to his sons, who eventually passed the business down to their sons, who expanded La Segunda to include retail. Copeland\u2019s father was Anthony \u201cTony\u201d More, who passed away in 2023 at age 80.<\/p>\n
Copeland, who joined the business full-time in 2009, takes pride in putting out a successful product. However, he says that the people behind La Segunda are what bring him the most joy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had several employees that were there before I was born; I grew up with them. One employee who retired last year, Sheila, she was just family. They become family. She watched me grow up and at some point I became her boss. That\u2019s cool to me.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd there\u2019s a lot of people that have been there across generations. Their grandfather was a baker and then their uncle. There\u2019s just so many stories and cross-tales of people that come into the bakery and say, \u2018Oh, when I was little, I took a tour of the bakery, and now I bring my grandson who\u2019s also going to take a tour of the bakery.\u2019 It\u2019s a big part of the community in Tampa, and I just feel lucky to be a part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Each loaf is triple-proofed and scored with a palmetto leaf before heading into the oven.<\/p>\n
While many people call La Segunda a Cuban bakery, Copeland More prefers a different classification.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, it\u2019s not a Cuban bakery \u2013 we\u2019re an Ybor City bakery,\u201d he insisted. \u201cWe\u2019ve got Italian influence, Spanish influence, Cuban influence and even some German-style pastries. Some people don\u2019t like that, you know, but people that were born around here understand it. It\u2019s just the influence of the city [Tampa]. All the immigrants from your city are from those different cultures, and that\u2019s how the food evolved.\u201d<\/p>\n
La Segunda has continued to evolve and expand, and as its fourth generation owner Copeland has been responsible for much of this growth. There are now three locations in Tampa \u2013 and one in St. Pete, which has been operating\u00a0at 2436 4th Street N. since 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of the biggest contributions that Copeland has made to La Segunda\u2019s brand presence is the expansion of its wholesale market. The bakery turns out over 20,000 loaves of Cuban bread daily, and Copeland takes pride in the fact that they still make it the old-fashioned way: each loaf is triple-proofed and scored with a palmetto leaf before heading into the oven and shipped out across the world. Bakers work around the clock at the main bakery in Ybor.<\/p>\n
La Segunda\u2019s biggest clients include names like Beef O\u2019Brady\u2019s, Publix, Raymond James Stadium, and food service companies like Cisco and Gordon Foods \u2013\u00a0 but the bakery also services lesser-known markets.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think what people find most surprising is that our bread gets shipped up to Alaska,\u201d Copeland said. \u201cOh my gosh, yeah, we sell quite a bit of bread up there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Through July 18, all La Segunda locations will offer certain bread and espresso anniversary discounts.<\/p>\n