A morning shift at a Middletown, Ohio, bakery turned into a front-row seat at a vice presidential rally — and nearly a week later, the two women at the center of it say they still haven’t come back down to earth. Cristaliz Portalatin, 28, and Ursula Bush, 53, who work at Central Pastry Shop, met Vice President JD Vance after he made a surprise stop at the shop last Friday, and he then invited them to ride along in his motorcade.
Portalatin described the encounter to Fox News Digital in an interview on Wednesday.
“We knew he was going to come into Middletown, so we assumed he was going to stop by the shop,” Portalatin said. She added that she had spent part of that morning praying he would swing by so the staff could talk with him and grab a photo.
A Donut Order and an Unplanned Invitation
He did swing by. Vance first greeted shop owner Vera Slamka, who ribbed him about losing too much weight since the last time the two had seen each other. Then he ordered an “ugly” — the lumpy glazed donut the bakery is known for — and declared them the finest donuts anywhere, a compliment the staff is unlikely to stop repeating.
Once the photos with Slamka and the rest of the crew were finished, Vance stayed to talk. Portalatin happened to mention, almost offhandedly, that she would love to hear his speech. She said he responded on the spot by asking whether she wanted to join him, and that the invitation came from him alone.
She agreed. So did her coworkers Bush and Jennifer Coby. Within minutes, the three of them were getting into a vehicle with a member of Vance’s staff, part of the motorcade headed for the rally. Portalatin said the group laughed and filmed videos the entire way, and that the others riding with them seemed amused by how excited they were.
An Eight-Minute Ride to the Steel Mill
The drive took eight minutes. On arrival, the women were walked into the Cleveland-Cliffs plant in Middletown and given seats just to the left of the stage where Vance spoke — so close, by their telling, that none of it ever stopped feeling surreal.
The remarks mattered a great deal to the town. Vance announced a $500 million federal grant for the plant, matched by another $500 million from Cleveland-Cliffs. The Department of Energy says the combined public and private money is meant to shore up the nation’s steel supply chain and should generate roughly 2,300 jobs.
The location carried personal meaning for Vance, whose grandfather welded at the Middletown mill decades ago. Bush has family ties there as well — her father, great-grandfather, great-grandmother and great-uncle all worked at the plant — and she said it was amazing to watch from beside the stage as the vice president announced its revitalization.
The Detail That Stuck With Them
Bush described Vance as genuine and easy to talk to, and she noted that none of it was obligatory: he did not have to invite the bakery crew along, she said, and he did not have to treat them the way he did.
The moment that stayed with her, though, had nothing to do with steel or politics. It was hearing the vice president talk about his infant son, Alec Neel Vance, born on July 19, 2026.
“He told us a little story about how the baby slept for the first time and only woke up once that night,” Bush said. A mother of three who raised her children on her own, she said the fact that he knew that particular detail about his son’s night meant a great deal to her, and that it made him feel like a real person rather than a figure on television.
Still Buzzing Almost a Week Later
Both women said they are still buzzing nearly a week after the fact. Portalatin called it an honor to do something few people ever get to do, said she believes God allowed it to happen, and joked that the excitement will probably follow her into the next lifetime.
It is a small story with a familiar Middletown shape: a hometown bakery, a returning native who still knows what to order, and an offhand remark that turned into a motorcade seat. Slamka’s shop got the vice president’s endorsement of its ugliest pastry. Three employees got a story they will be telling for years. And the mill where Vance’s grandfather once welded got a $1 billion combined vote of confidence, split evenly between the federal government and Cleveland-Cliffs.
Not a bad Friday for anyone involved — least of all the crew behind the counter, who clocked in expecting a normal shift and clocked out having watched national news get made from a seat beside the stage.