Rose Café

The Rose Café, a community hub located at 424 East Haley Street (between Laguna and Olive) for nearly a century, closed in April 2021. The neighborhood has long been home to a mix of industrial, retail and residential uses; the surrounding community was also rich in diversity, and over the years, the Rose Café served as a space for congenial gathering over home-cooked Mexican-American meals and snacks.

The café’s history is a window on the history of the city’s Mexican-American community. It began operation as a combined grocery and cafe in 1924, and was acquired in 1928 by Prima Rosa Signor, an Italian immigrant, who with her husband had operated a boarding house at the corner of Chapala and Canon Perdido Streets. Renamed the Rose Café by Mrs. Signor, the restaurant employed Mexican cooks whose homemade dishes made it a magnet for locals. Maria Herrera Alvarez, who had emigrated from Durango, Mexico in 1925, began working at the café in 1929. In 1932, the café went bankrupt and Mrs. Alvarez acquired the business. The Rose Café thrived over the next few decades, becoming especially popular among the bracero workers who lived nearby in a camp located at the current site of Santa Barbara Lumber. Mrs. Alvarez’s meals reminded the men of their homes, and they found emotional and bodily sustenance in dishes like pigs feet dipped in egg batter, cows’ tongues, pork red chile, lamb’s head, and red chile with chicharrónes. The café also provided meals for nearby boarding houses. There was never a menu at that time. Instead, the waitstaff told diners’ the day’s offerings which changed with the cooks’ supplies and preferences.