When Jacqui Karlsen learned that Café La Fonda, operating on Anapamu Street across from the Courthouse Sunken Garden since late 2023, was in danger of shutting down, she was compelled to step in. That’s why, as of June 16, the prime location which has somehow run through many iterations since the beloved, sorely missed The Bakery left (The Courthouse Tavern, The Little Door, Piano Riviera Lounge, The French Table, and Elements Restaurant & Bar), is now officially La Fonda Smash Burger & Pancake House. Bet you can guess some of the menu.
Yes, a simplified, shortened from the six previous pages menu version of the old La Fonda Mexican cuisine will remain — starting with the chilaquiles — but Karlsen, partnering with her daughter Jenna Sanchez, is adding a focus on “hometown comfort food.” For Santa Barbara native Karlsen, that not only means items like Mexican style turkey dogs and scooped Thrifty’s ice cream, but also, “your mom’s recipes, your Saturday-morning favorites — pancakes and scrambled eggs, burgers and fries, thick-cut, with yummy seasoning.” Also not going away are La Fonda’s lively Sunday mariachi brunches and its folklórico Saturdays. It’s like Fiesta year-round on the weekends. (Do note the online menu and website are still getting updated — for now, you need to show up to see what’s offered.)
But those offerings will be cut off at 3 p.m. so that the restaurant — sitting prettily across from wedding central in Santa Barbara, the County Courthouse — can be booked for events. After all, more than 3,500 wedding ceremonies were held at the courthouse in 2024 — that’s nearly 10 a day! “We’re opening up the space to do celebrations,” Karlsen says, “as another way to hug our community.” Karlsen points out that the events range from wedding receptions to birthdays to quinceañeras.
Community is still crucial to La Fonda’s mission, even if it is no longer tied specifically to La Casa de la Raza and its Resilience Institute, as it was for its first year-and-a-half. That shift is partially motivated by the current administration’s harsh crackdown on immigrants, undocumented or not. But then there are all the other failings and horrors emanating from Washington. “Twenty percent of our proceeds, we will donate to nonprofits working for social justice,” Karlsen says, “and that might be teachers, after-school programs, tenant unions, LGBTQ+ groups — not just La Casa [the beneficiary of an earlier restaurant iteration]. Right now, with the climate so heavy, there are so many organizations and people stepping up, so we want to support them.”
What’s more, in its announcement about the new ownership at La Fonda, the team asserted: “We are proud to be locally owned and operated, and our first priority is always our community. Because of this vision, we’ve created our Good Neighbor Program, offering special downtown worker coupons to help support those who keep our city moving.” Downtown employees need only to ask when they stop in for the discount coupons.
As Karlsen sums it up, “We’re still here for our community; our mission moves on.”
That community better show up hungry, though.
Cafe La Fonda, 129 E. Anapamu St., cafelafonda.com. Open Tuesday-Sunday, 7 a.m.-3 p.m.
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