How would you like to work in a bakery that only makes one product, but bakes and sells 30,000 of them every day? Pastéis de Belém in Lisbon Portugal was founded in the early 1800s when the government expelled monks from a near-by Monastery, and the monks opened a bake shop using Monastery’s “secret” recipe for custard tarts. It is still a secret, known only to three people in each generation…but enjoyed by many thousands every day. In the panel above you see the product waiting patiently for me to eat it back at my hotel room, a shot through the window of the kitchen, the bedlam of customers and servers inside the shop (from behind the scenes), and the line waiting outside the shop in mid-afternoon on a holiday Friday (a religious holiday when most folks, including those inside the bakery, were still at work). It went on for a good deal further than you can see in the photo. As a guest of the City of Lisbon, I did have to wait in the line. My guide just wormed her way into the kitchen and my order appeared a few moments later. When it comes to Pastéis de Belém, it pays to have connections. 🙂 Sony RX10iv in Auto mode. Processed in Photoshop Express and assemble in FrameMagic.