La Monarca Bakery & Cafe — Restaurant in Commerce

This bakery should be at the top of LA's Best Cakes list (if there is such). After a fall of flavor with my go to cake place, and keeping with goal of becoming a more aware and sustainable consumer, I came across La Monarca Bakery.

La Monarca Bakery has teamed with Ecolife Foundation focusing on protecting the endangered Monarch butterflies of Mexico. With such worthy sustainable mission, I drove to the Commerce location in search of a cake.

The bakery is located in a shopping strip that features a Target and El Super market; therefore, depending on the time that you go, parking can be seen a little daunting. To be sure; driving east on Whittier enter the parking lot at the east-most end of the shopping strip - that is where the bakery is at anyway and also there is less in/out traffic.

Once you enter the bakery, you will feel at ease. The bakery has some sort of calming effect; perhaps all the deliciousnesses that are on display.

The attendant was quick to offer me assistance. She was also not bothered by the many questions I had about cake flavors and prices. What was even better and perhaps should be part of EVERY bakery in existence, is the offering of samples of cakes they have for sale. The attendant let me sample all of the cakes but feeling a bit guilty, I just sampled three of the six flavors.

After much debate and contemplation of leaving with three cakes instead of the one, I chose the traditional strawberry shortcake.

And, how do you know it was a hit? There were...

Previously I hadn't had a bad experience but today I don't know what was up with the employees. I had made an online order yesterday to pick up today at a specific time and when I got there i walked straight to one of the cashier's by the name of Bertha and told her I was picking up an order and gave her my name. She looked up at me and walked to the back so I was thinking she was getting my order but instead she goes to the front and starts helping the other cashier with the line that built up right after I had gotten there. The employees would see me waiting there and not once did they ask me if I needed help. Only once the line was gone did one of the cashier's ask me if I needed help and so I proceeded with telling him I was picking up and order. And to make things worst they didn't even have my order ready so I still had to wait a few more minutes for them to have it ready. I was so frustrated and they didn't even bother to apologize for the wait...

Spacious. Not very busy in the morning, which is a good thing as there are multiple small businesses nearby. Plenty of parking in the street. Not too far of a walk.

Not a lot of selection for pastries and bread. The bread are a bit small in portion. If you are used to certain speciality bread or bigger portions, you aren't going to find that here. Small portions and a bit pricey. Not the best ad compared to speciality bakeries.

However, if you are looking for coffee that is more traditional Latin/Mexican this is the place. The staff isn't very knowledgeable when it comes to options to add. It is spacious. There is also a taco stand that opens nearby.

This place is a nice MEXICAN cafe. If you are looking for AMERICAN Starbucks this is not the place. This is a niche market and they do good in catering to familiar tastes. Very good, staff is fast. They have cold brew cafe de olla and...