21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Indianapolis Star
Albert Trevino, founder of Rene's Bakery in Broad Ripple, dies after bout with cancer
When Olivia Trevino thinks of her father, she hears music.
The 22-year-old student at Indiana University-Bloomington remembers mornings walking down the stairs of her childhood home, where there was seemingly always something on the stove and a song in the air.
"There wasn't a time when there wasn't music in the house," she said.
But most in Indianapolis knew Olivia's father for his food. For 20 years, Albert Rene Trevino provided residents of Broad Ripple and beyond with fresh pastries out of a royal blue retrofitted two-car garage on Cornell Avenue. Trevino's bakery, Rene's, has long been a staple of the neighborhood.
When Trevino was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer in April 2023, Olivia set up a GoFundMe page to help cover his medical bills. In less than 12 hours, the fundraiser received more than $10,000 in donations.
Trevino died May 8 after two years battling cancer. He was 59. In the year preceding his death, Trevino stepped down from Rene's due to his health, and last July the bakery announced it would close indefinitely. In December it reopened under new owners, one of them a Rene's employee.
Friends and family of Trevino remember him as self-assured but unassuming, relentlessly driven but undeniably silly. The man with an infectious smile loved to dance, even if he didn't really know how, Olivia said.
Trevino was born in Gary in 1965 and raised primarily by his mother, Socorro. At 18 he enrolled at Indiana University in Bloomington, where he met longtime friend Matt Schuler his freshman year.
Schuler and Trevino quickly bonded over their shared love of music — Schuler favored disco, while Trevino introduced him to Prince and other dance music — and an interest in cycling. The duo were among the founding members of longstanding Little 500 racing team Cinzano, Schuler as a mechanic and Trevino as an alternate rider. Schuler gave Trevino his first road bike, a Peugeot that Trevino would eventually ride from Bloomington to Gary and back (a roughly 400-mile round trip) "for fun."
Trevino dropped out of school after his first year to manage the since-closed Jake's Nightclub on Walnut Street in downtown Bloomington and a ska band called Johnny Socko. He later managed The Vogue and the now-closed Patio in Broad Ripple as well.
Wherever Trevino went, he created community around himself, Schuler said. He insisted on walking to most places and seldom let a familiar face pass without saying hello. As the world around Trevino grew more digital and isolated, his fraternal personality stood out even more.
"You don't really have that kind of congregational unit (anymore), but Albert was always that person that kinda created that around himself and with all of his friends," Schuler said.
The largest community Trevino created was that of his neighbors and customers at Rene's, which he opened at 6524 Cornell Avenue in March 2004. After his time in Bloomington, Trevino moved to Indianapolis and enrolled in Ivy Tech's culinary arts program. As part of the curriculum, Trevino spent four months in Paris, where he fell in love with the craft of pastry.
Trevino worked as a pastry chef for high-end restaurants and a country club in Indianapolis through the late 1990s and early 2000s but had an itch to make the things he wanted. When Trevino met with the owner of the two-car garage on Cornell about purchasing some baking equipment, he instead received an offer to rent the space for a business of his own.
Laurie Trevino, Olivia's mother who was married to Albert from 2002 to 2011, remembers Albert's elation when he returned from that meeting.
"He came home and he was so excited," she said.
A few weeks later, Rene's began with about 600 square feet and a handful of employees. Albert gave the bakery his middle name to make it sound more European, not that anyone passing by would know — the shop didn't even have a sign when it opened.
While Albert was working to give rise to his dreams, he and Laurie were raising Olivia, who was less than a year old when Rene's opened. Four years later they had a son, Nicholas, now 18.
Olivia described herself as a daddy's girl from birth. The day Laurie and Albert brought Olivia home from the hospital, Albert carried his newborn daughter throughout the house and showed her each room. That's how their relationship always was, Olivia said, her father taking her everywhere he went and teaching her to navigate the world around her. She remembers going to the bakery with Albert as a little girl to peel bananas and rumbling across town on IndyGo buses because her father insisted she understand the city's transit system.
Around the the time Albert's health started to deteriorate in November 2022, he was living with Ana Rosales, his partner of nearly 10 years. Rosales started working at Rene's in 2014, and the two began a relationship shortly thereafter.
From that November until Albert's diagnosis in April, Rosales was by his side nearly 24 hours each day. They would go to the bakery in the morning, sometimes as early as 2:30 a.m., to start rolling out dough on the kitchen's cool countertops. Rosales said nearly every day Trevino sang to her lines from the Velvet Underground's "I'm Sticking With You."
I'm sticking with you / 'Cause I'm made out of glue / Anything that you might do / I'm gonna do.
When Albert underwent treatment, Rosales took over much of the day-to-day operations at Rene's. After eight hours or so at the bakery, she would spend the night with Albert at the hospital. When the cancer made it difficult for Albert to speak, Rosales learned to read his lips.
"When the bakery closed, we were literally stuck together," she said. "I didn't move from his side unless I needed to."
Until the end, Albert was determined to overcome the disease that had taken his voice and his ability to run Rene's. After Albert's first surgery, Olivia saw him doing leg lifts in his hospital bed to stay in shape. Rosales once caught him hooking his foot under a piece of furniture so he could stay standing, refusing to let others see how sick he had gotten.
"He was so determined to win this battle," Olivia said. "I think we saw that through the last two years — how strong he really is."
Thanks to the money donated through Olivia's GoFundMe page, the Trevinos didn't have to pay a cent for Albert's cancer treatments. They plan to donate the remainder to the American Cancer Society in Albert's name.
Meanwhile, Rene's remains reopened under the leadership of longtime Rene's bread baker Isaac Roman and restaurant industry veteran Thomas Hays.
"He wanted to keep the bakery (open), and to have people keep the memory of him," Rosales said. "The bread recipes and croissants, stuff like that, it was for the people. For his people."
The Trevino family will hold a "celebration of life" for Albert at the Indy Art Center (820 E. 67th St.) from 3-6:30 p.m. on June 1. Per Albert's obituary, guests are encouraged to "attend in casual attire (no black!), and bring happy, fun memories to share (no crying!)."
