All foods from JP’s Pastry, a bakery with four locations in North Carolina, are gluten free.
Courtesy of JP’s Pastry
A North Carolina bakery known for its gluten-free items is expanding to a new location in Durham.
JP’s Pastry, which now has four shops across Benson, Greenville, Raleigh and Durham, officially opened the doors to its Bull City location a few weeks ago, but will hold a grand opening celebration in March.
The expansion to Durham was fueled by the bakery’s desire to be closer to its customers, Iz Flores, who co-owns the bakery with his husband, Joe Parker, told The News & Observer in a call.
“Thinking about the population centers, Durham just seemed to be a good fit because it’s still centrally located,” Flores said. “There’s still a pretty big population center in Durham itself. But then you also have Chapel Hill, you have Orange County, Chatham County. We’re now a little closer to folks that are in Alamance County, in Greensboro.”
About JP’s Pastry
The idea for the bakery came from Parker, who has a wheat allergy, Flores said. Parker, a Benson native, started by baking gluten-free cupcakes for himself, his family and friends.
JP’s Pastry’s Durham location is already open but will host a grand opening event March 14. Courtesy of JP’s Pastry
He was working as a dentist but left the practice when the bakery, which was founded as JP’s Cupcakery, started to take off, Flores told The News & Observer. Parker, who graduated from the UNC Adams School of Dentistry, is a self-taught baker, but attended courses at the San Francisco Baking Institute.
Around 2015, the first brick-and-mortar JP’s Pastry location opened in Benson, as the business was too much for the home kitchen to handle. JP’s Pastry’s baked goods, including cupcakes, scones and muffins, were sold at local businesses including the now-closed Café de los Muertos. But JP’s soon made agreements with grocers including Whole Foods Market and Weaver Street Market, which still carry the bakery’s items.
The second location opened in Greenville in the fall of 2024, and the third in Raleigh in May 2025.
Moving forward, JP’s Pastry is looking to open a fifth location in Wilmington later this year. They expect that the bakery’s gluten-free and vegan options will appeal to tourists.
“We find that one of the main things that people are going to be looking for when they’re planning their vacations is making sure that they’re going to have places that they can go eat,” Flores said.
A vegan snickerdoodle cookie sandwich from the gluten-free bakery JP’s Pastry. Courtesy of JP’s Pastry JP’s Pastry menu
JP’s Pastry is a certified gluten-free bakery by the Gluten Intolerance Group. Every item the bakery sells — whether it’s a batch of Hawaiian rolls, cinnamon rolls or biscuits, a whole pie, or a single brownie or cheesecake bar — is made without gluten.
Baked goods and prepared meals are made in Benson and delivered to JP’s Pastry shops each day.
“The variety of products that we offer are things that go beyond just a dessert or a piece of bread,” Flores said. “Our key products are things that people use all the time.”
Individual pastries such as muffins, brownies, cheesecake bars and cupcakes are around $5 on JP’s Pastry’s website. Cake squares cost around $7. Loaf breads, packs of biscuits and hamburger buns are around $10-$14.
JP’s Pastry opens new Durham location
The Durham bakery has already opened its doors, but a grand opening event is scheduled for Saturday, March 14.
Visitors can enjoy free samples all day, but the first 25 people in line when the doors open at 10 a.m. get a tote bag filled with treats. JP’s will also give away a $100 gift card at 10:30 a.m. and $50 gift cards every 30 minutes from 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m.
JP’s Pastry’s Durham location is at 7072 Highway 751, Suite 108.
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Renee Umsted is a service journalism reporter for The News & Observer. She has a degree in journalism from the Bob Schieffer College of Communication at TCU.
