Rose Cafe on Haley Street.
Jen Villa

It’s not until 2021, but the Rose Café on Haley Street has decided to shutter its doors. Proprietor Anna Olvera has run the place seven days a week for several years, since before her mother, Agnes Guevara, died in 2014. The matriarch of a wide-ranging family and the originator in the 1950s of the Santa Barbara gathering-place, Guevara was on her feet cooking in the kitchen well into her nineties. With the passing of her husband, Antonio Guevara, in 2015, their properties were divided between the kids, and the lease on the Rose comes to an end in about four years.

Her customers have begged her to stay open, Olvera said, but she reflected that it’d be nice to take a break, which her restaurant duties have prevented thus far. “It’s the magic number,” Olvera said philosophically of the restaurant’s 85th anniversary, which will be in April 2021.

Login

Please note this login is to submit events or press releases. Use this page here to login for your Independent subscription

Not a member? Sign up here.