Owner Yuly Arcila at Son de Cali, her Colombian bakery and restaurant on Wyckoff Avenue. — Photos by Scarlett Lindeman

On the southern stretch of Wyckoff Avenue, home to sidewalk sales and aging warehouses, is a bright spot of caffeinated orange. Son De Cali is a vibrantly painted three-month old Colombian café, a pit stop to fill up on mild milky coffee and coconut rolls or linger over expansive plates of Colombian lunchtime favorites.

	Son de Cali 877 Wyckoff Avenue (Between Hancock and Jefferson) 7am-9pm 347-725-3978 Food: $1-8
	Arepa de choclo, almohabana, and coffee. Click to see more.

Yuly Arcila is the owner. A long-time Bushwick resident, opening a bakery was a huge step forward. "I went through a life-changing event…" she says, then hesitates, "I had to do something for my kids, and I took a risk," and opened Son de Cali, with help from her brother, a restaurant-owner. The bakery serves traditional Colombian breads and pastries like the cheesy pandebonos, fried buñuelos, and breads laced with guava paste and thickened cream cheese. The house favorites are the almohabanas — round spongy disks of bread flecked with cheese, waiting to soak up steaming cups of coffee.

Mrs. Arcila has plans to expand and to offer a more substantial menu — "we are adding little by little."  For now there are always good things to eat Thursday through Sunday. Just ask the counter workers what the kitchen is working on, maybe sopa de mariscos or plates of grilled chicken with a bright beet, red cabbage, and green tomato relish.  "Colombians, we like green tomatoes," a worker explains, "the red ones are for stews and sauces. Green are for salads."  The crisp tart relish cuts through plates of chicharron and chorizo.  As does the ají, a housemade chile sauce that stabs with capsaicin.

Don’t leave without an arepa de choclo. It is a wide corn patty, dense with whole corn kernels, akin to cornbread but so sweet and rich it will leave you nodding off.  Some might say it tastes just like a Momofuku Milk Bar corn cookie and others, a conventional South American taste of home.

"That’s what the name means, Son De Cali, ‘We’re from Cali’," Mrs. Arcila says, telling me about her home town, Santiago de Cali. "It’s really hot there! And the salsa is always playing," she says, gesturing to the shaking stereo on the wall. Kind of like Bushwick.