La Bella Rosa Bakery — Restaurant in Santa Barbara

Their Mexican bread is pretty good though not a large selection. Most of the times I do go (3 times a week) they have freshly baked "Conchas" in vanilla or chocolate. These satisfy my 92 year old dads sweet tooth.

What I was very disappointed this year is we always go buy 20lbs of tamale masa on the 23rd of December and wait 2 hours in lines to get home and find the masa was not processed enough really messes up my Christmas tamale production ChaCha. The masa was chalky and gritty and not smooth and creamy like years before. If you cant keep up with the demand and provide a good product then you shouldn't be selling it. Where is the quality control?

Everyone who makes tamales for their family during Christmas knows its a lot of work and to get poor quality masa is unacceptable. Did I go get a refund? No, No time to deal with this. I needed my good masa now. So I rushed to a Carpinteria bakery that ironically is owned by a sibling of Bella Rosa and the masa was beautifully perfect. Rushed back home to get my tamale production grove going again.

You may ask why didn't I check the masa when I bought it at Bella Rosa's? Because we had never had a problem before and my husband is the one who picked it up and he don't have a clue about masa quality.

~Hortensia

Merry...

I have held off on making a review of this place for YEARS, but here it goes…. I used to get our Tres leches cakes for birthday parties here all the time! The last time I went I ordered a half sheet (pre-paid of course) but when I went to pick it up it was a full sheet and the person at the front was trying to charge me the difference. She gets on the phone, a little back and forth with whomever then tells me that I can have the cake and they were going to charge it to the worker that made the mistake.

I have never gone back there since then and it’s been about 10 years, if not more.

My husband went there today and ordered a Tri-tip torta and got 2 strips of Tri-tip for the whole sandwich. The pico de gallo that’s normally included wasn’t and I guess salsa isn’t included either for tortas. This was from a conversation he and his buddy had with the so called owner and she didn’t even try to make the situation better. Not even offering to give a new torta or IOU.

I’m not one that usually post reviews, especially negative ones but I had to after today’s experience.

Go 2 blocks down to El Zarape or 3 blocks down to Cucas for food they hook it up and it’s fresh as F!!!

I wish they had taken pictures of the bush league tortas they got but...

I am a SB local and have been a Bella Rosa customer for the last 25 years. I have been disappointing time and time again as I make the mistake of going back, thinking that they might have improved. Don't get me wrong, the bread is good--when they have some, but that is where it ends. The way employees treat customers is absolutely deplorable. Nobody that works here has any concept of service or at the least good manners. The cashiers are always rude and they are often argumentative when I point out errors in my order, which they can never get right. They do not seem to care about any loss of business which is probably because most of their customer base lacks the transportation to go elsewhere. After today's experience, I am done. I hope that someone has the good sense to open a competing bakery in the area and put these clowns out of...