Little Heart Cafecito — Restaurant in Santa Barbara

It hurts my corazoncito to write this review. I was looking forward to try this coffee shop in the public market given the stellar reviews and recommendations. Yet, it didn’t meet the hype or expectations.

I came in on a Sunday morning with my partner. Of course there was a line given its popularity but that moved briskly. The menu is semi-hidden on a side wall away from the register so you can’t view it while waiting in line until its decision time. Some printed menus would be ideal. The gal at the register was friendly (hence the second star), however, our experience went downhill from there. We each ordered a burrito plus a coffee drink. They were unfortunately out of the Churro Latte—no biggy, it must be popular and worth returning for. I went with a basic vanilla oat milk latte, while my partner had an iced oat milk Cafe de Olla. Both drinks were very palatable (I preferred my partner’s choice), however, my drink wasn’t hot, not even luke warm. I returned to the counter and the barista did not give me a pleased look when I asked for a fresh latte, however, he did remake it after a short wait. I understood that they were busy but am paying for an item I can enjoy.

They provide you with a buzzer after ordering while you wait to come retrieve your food when it’s ready. We waited, and waited, and waited—as did several groups ahead and after us. Eventually after 30 minutes I sent my partner to the counter to check on our order’s status. Sure enough our’s and everyone else’s food orders were sitting there. Not one buzzer was rung. If the system was down, the register should not be handing them out and instead call out names like the coffee orders. Two other groups went up after us to the counter to realize the same thing.

They were out of all of the normal Corazón Cocina salsa options except for a mild green one. When we opened up our burritos they were thankfully warm but one was the Los Alamos and another El Carpintero. We ordered the same burrito…? We didn’t want to wait longer so we ate them anyhow. Sadly, the burritos were watery and full of filler vegetables (onion, bell peppers with minimal eggs or meat). Nothing was good about them.

Regardless of the hype, I don’t plan to return here and will go to Caje or...

I’m not typically one to be inclined to write a review, but this experience was so bad, I felt I had to warn others against the horrible service provided here. It really takes effort to make service this bad. We decided to stop by to try out some breakfast burritos today (9/25). We waited patiently in line while the cashier pretended not to see us waiting. Another customer cut in front of us and the cashier girl took his order, ignoring my comment to both of them that we were in line. When it was our turn, I politely let her know we had been waiting, hoping she could rectify the issue, to which she responded in an irritated tone “yeah, I wasn’t paying attention to who was in line.” We left it alone and completed our order, annoyed but still trying to enjoy what was supposed to be a pleasant morning.

We saw a large crowd of customers come after our order was taken and listened for our names to be called. People that ordered before us, including the man who cut the line, got their orders, and so did every single person that ordered after us. Once the crowd was completely gone, we went to the cashier to ask about our order. Again, she rudely responded, “there are other people whose burritos we have to make too.” We looked around to an empty waiting area… we were LITERALLY the only people waiting. Mind you, we saw the people that came in line after us, and all of them had already left with their orders. Not once did she own up to the mistake or apologize for the service but instead was defensive each time, even though she was obviously not being honest. It honestly got to the point where it felt personal, and I wondered if she would dare spitting in our food. We ended up getting our order, and I’m not sure if it was on purpose or by mistake, they gave us an extra burrito. By then, we had already wasted 30 minutes and had our moods completely ruined from the cashier’s attitude. We’ve been here a few times before and even brought visitors from out of town here for a coffee, but let me tell you - we will never, ever...

The late afternoon called for an iced latte, I found this Cafe on a random search. Pleasantly surprised, I found an entire food court encompassed as part of the space shared by this Cafe. So if not planning to get coffee, their are a number of options of food choices for a guest. I went to the Cafe and saw delicious deserts, but just ordered the iced latte with almond mylk. The drink, within minutes ready, I added a raw sugar packet, which actually seemed unnecessary afterwards. The almond mylk and the naturalness of the espresso on ice had a sweet flavor about it already. I was very happy with my drink for dessert and went about my way, next time planning to try one of the food places in the same building, what a...