How a Gay Detroit Bakery Owner Paved His Own Path and Opened the City’s First Filipino Bakery
For Jonathan Peregrino, he's 'happy and humbled' to represent the gay Filipino population

When Jonathan Peregrino set out to open his bakery, JP Makes and Bakes in Detroit, he knew one thing for sure: He was going to do it his way.
For the 42-year-old bakeshop owner and Food Network alum, that meant working in a small space with a small team — five employees, plus himself. It also meant creating a diverse, rotating menu of items that reflect what he loves to eat and bake, drawing inspiration from his childhood. The personal touch he has added to JP Makes and Bakes since it opened in October, thanks to a $60,000 Motor City Match grant to purchase equipment, extends to his relationship with customers. There’s a reason why orders can only be made in-store, not online or over the phone.
“I want to be able to talk to people,” Peregrino tells Pride Source about prioritizing customer relationships as more than just business as usual. He adds that he wants to “explain what I’m doing, explain the food if they have questions, and just do this my way.”
JP Makes and Bakes is Detroit’s first and only Filipino bakery, and Peregrino says the treats he creates represent him and his upbringing as a first-generation Filipino American. Peregrino was born in California and grew up on the West Coast after his parents moved to the States in the late ’70s.
Though his recipes may not always align with traditional Filipino ingredients or appearances, they are authentically reflective of his background.

“I was more exposed to the Filipino bakeries there, or the recipes that my mom and my grandma had,” he says. “Some of those recipes had to be converted, though, because they didn't have access to some of the traditional ingredients.”
For example, when traditional recipes would use rice flour, he would often substitute all-purpose flour or dairy milk instead of coconut milk. This approach, blending familiar flavors with practical adjustments, has carried through to his bakery.
Though the menu is continually evolving, Peregrino keeps what he calls the “core six” items available daily. These include pandesal (a lightly sweetened plain roll), pan de coco (pandesal filled with coconut), ube cookies and brownies, his take on the traditional bibingka cake (sometimes filled with blueberries or chocolate chips for a twist) and pan de everything — a version of pandesal filled with cream cheese and topped with “everything bagel” seasoning.
“That is very much a hybrid recipe because it’s definitely not something I grew up eating or in that context. But eating these rolls growing up, I would eat it with cream cheese as a snack, and combining that all into one is something that a lot of Filipinos aren't used to, but it also makes sense to me,” he says.
When it comes to new Makes and Bakes menu items, as long as a recipe makes sense to him, Peregrino will try it. “I’m not going to do anything I don’t want to do and won’t be proud of,” he says.
He also promises a rotating cake slice for customers every day. His reasoning is simple: “because I love cake.”

It wasn’t just his love for cake that got him here, though. It was his time at pastry school in the Philippines and several other roles: head baker at Tapped Coffee and Craft Beverages in Canton, pastry sous chef at Oak & Reel in Detroit, and even as a competitor on Food Network’s “Holiday Baking Championship” in 2020.
“I was the very first one cut; it was the very first season. They did a cut during the very first mini-challenge. I didn't know what was going on and made a few mistakes,” Peregrino says.
Still, he says his time on the show was monumental for pushing him to follow his dream, and it was “a great experience that I wouldn't take back.” Plus, he made a few friends. One of them was another gay contestant, Jeff Gray, who even came up to Michigan from Atlanta to visit Peregrino and his bakery after it opened. Looking back, Peregrino says he would like the opportunity to do something like it again.
“I hope to go back on a show one of these days," he says. "I know that what I showed on that show wasn't anywhere near my capabilities and I'm a much different pastry chef now than I was back then.”
At the core of his journey is a simple desire: “I just am really hoping to expose people to a variety of baked goods that might not have been accessible to them before,” Peregrino says.
Peregrino's friend Kari Paine describes him as “stubborn and determined, in the best way.”
“That is just his personality to the core, he will always be true to himself,” Paine says.
The two met in 2016 at a CrossFit gym, where Peregrino was a fitness coach while also working a corporate job in sales. At the time, he was baking in his spare time — a passion he hadn’t yet pursued professionally.
“He would bring trays of cookies into the gym. We’d be doing our workouts, then eat cookies afterward, which is hilarious,” Paine recalls.
“We encouraged him to do more [baking], which was partially self-serving, for sure, because we got lots of treats,” Paine admits. But she believes this post-workout cookie club helped Peregrino. “Baking was like an antidote to him,” she says, helping balance the demands of his corporate job.

Peregrino says he always knew he would end up in the food industry somehow, and his sales and business experience actually helped him make it a reality.
“As I began to work through the business, writing the plans for opening the bakery, I was able to draw from that experience. From the presentations I’ve done, I’m able to explain myself more and be the face of the business. I also feel like I have a great background on knowing many of the business aspects and having the passion for food and baking,” says Peregrino.
And once he fully committed to baking full-time, Paine says it was clear this was his calling, despite his 15-year career in sales. She believes Peregrino’s journey mirrors the experience of coming out as a queer person.
“It’s so cool to see that he's doing something that is incredibly demanding, but it's so fulfilling. I feel like as queer people, it's this beautiful parallel to coming into your own, and coming out and living your truth — and how it is harder objectively in so many ways, but it's so much better as a whole,” Paine says.
While Peregrino is grateful that JP Makes and Bakes serves as a haven for both the queer and Filipino communities, he emphasizes that the bakery's opening wasn’t about “checking boxes” of representation.
“I’m happy and humbled to be there and to be a representative for these communities that I am part of. But it wasn't what my goal was,” says Peregrino. “My plan was all about having a bakery and doing the types of food that I love to make and to eat, and just representing me. But I guess in representing me, it's representing the Filipino and the queer communities at the same time.”