There is something worth saying about a business that has been open for 85 years.

Not 85 years of surviving. 85 years of showing up. Through the oil booms and the slowdowns. Through Harvey. Through a pandemic. Through every school year this city has ever had, Rao's Bakery has been on the corner doing what it does.

The story starts at a refinery. Before there was a storefront, there was Johnny Rao, making pastries in the cafeteria at the Magnolia Refinery — now ExxonMobil — where his baked goods became so popular among the workers that he decided to open his own place. In 1941, he opened the first Rao's Bakery at the corner of 10th Street and Calder Avenue. He never left Beaumont. Beaumont never left him.

Last week Rao's marked 85 years. To commemorate the anniversary the bakery offered cookies, cupcakes, muffins and coffee for 85 cents each. The line was long. The people in it were every age.

"The customers have been so loyal to us for so long," said Josh Tortorice, current partner. "For Rao's Bakery to have lasted 85 years, that's quite a testament to the loyalty of Southeast Texas."

In a business climate where five years feels like an achievement and ten feels like a legacy, 85 is something different entirely. It is multi-generational. It is grandparents who brought their children who brought their children. It is Beaumont's story told one loaf, one pastry, one cup of coffee at a time across five locations.

The Tortorice family released a short video this week thanking the Beaumont community for 85 years of loyalty and love. It is worth one minute and sixteen seconds of your time.

Watch it here: 

Rao's Bakery Facebook Reel

Brandon Gouthier has photographed school kids, celebrities, and former presidents across Southeast Texas. His first gallery exhibition just opened at the Art Museum of Southeast Texas. It is called Lipstick and Grease and it closes August 23.

Some introductions just need to happen. If you have lived in Beaumont for any length of time, you have probably been in the same room as Brandon Gouthier without knowing his name. He was the one holding the camera.

For twenty-five years, Brandon Gouthier Photography has been the studio behind many of Southeast Texas’s most important moments. Weddings. Graduations. Galas. Concerts. Corporate events. School portraits. Community celebrations. When a major event brought notable guests, entertainers, community leaders, and visiting personalities to Beaumont, Brandon was often the photographer called to capture it. His camera has preserved this community’s joy, milestones, faces, and stories, from intimate family moments to some of the region’s biggest occasions. 

He learned the craft right here. Brandon studied photography at Lamar University in Beaumont under the mentorship of Keith Carter, one of the most celebrated fine art photographers in the world. A Guggenheim Fellow whose work has been shown in major museums internationally, Carter spent decades teaching at Lamar. He took Brandon under his wing. That is where the foundation was built.

"I am inspired by the love I have for Southeast Texas and the beauty of its people and the nature that surrounds us," Brandon has said of his work.

His debut exhibition, Lipstick and Grease, is currently on view at the Art Museum of Southeast Texas. The photographs span 2005 to 2021 and document Texas and Nevada vintage car and motorcycle culture. They are personal. They honor his late father. They show a side of Brandon Gouthier that twenty-five years of event photography never gave Beaumont the chance to see.