Hook Logo

Changes at La Taza include name, prices

by Dave McNair
published 3:15pm Tuesday Jan 12, 2010
Bookmark and Share letter Write a letter to the editor

dish-lataza
Next week, La Taza will change its name to Roast: a neighborhood eatry and espresso bar.
FILE PHOTO BY DAVE MCNAIR

While La Taza prepares to open La Tazita in the SNL Buildings, which we reported on last week, down at their Downtown Belmont location they’re cooking up some changes as well— like changing their name.

That’s right, according to La Taza owner Melissa Easter, the Belmont coffee house and eatery will soon change its name to the more elaborate Roast: a neighborhood eatery and espresso bar. Easter says its an effort to re-brand the place for the “eclectic blend of folks” who’ve frequented La Taza over the years. The change will include bringing the prices down, making service quicker, redecorating, going green by adding solar hot water heaters on the roof, adding more soups and sandwiches, and naming the sandwiches after streets in Belmont.

“Cash is a problem right now,” says Easter. “And we want to make it reasonable to go out.”

Easter says the changes should be done next week, but that people shouldn’t expect to lose that La Taza atmosphere entirely.

“We’ve changed colors a little bit, moved things around, but it will still have that funky La Taza feel,” she says.” I think it’s prettier than it was before.”

As for La Tazita, Easter says she was initially skeptical about expanding over the bridge, but has since warmed up to the idea.

“I’m so excited about La Tazita,” she says. “It’s going to be a nice, little, cozy warm spot in the SNL building.”

Of course, all this sudden change has been a whirlwind for Easter.

”It’s crazy, it was a lot to do in a little time,” she says.

10 comments

  • Floozy January 12th, 2010 | 8:14 pm

    Dave… line 15 again.
    /I’m going to have to start charging.

  • yepper January 12th, 2010 | 8:57 pm

    What is with the loose proliferation of misspellings of the word “lose”? Were passels of textbooks printed with a typo, forever condemning generations of school children to a lifetime of ignorance of the correct spelling of this one syllable, four letter word?

    In the last 5 years, I’ve seen the mistake more and more often. It is truly puzzling.

    Good job, Floozy.

  • Locust Ave Guy January 12th, 2010 | 9:41 pm

    Decaf guys, decaf…

  • WestBerkeleyFlats January 12th, 2010 | 9:46 pm

    Has pedantic behavior also increased over the last five years?

  • Floozy January 12th, 2010 | 11:15 pm

    Perhaps I’m actually Flozy. I’ll have to look into that… as the actress said to the bishop.

  • Floozy January 13th, 2010 | 6:37 pm

    Do they not have Google on your planet?

  • Floozy January 13th, 2010 | 6:41 pm

    …or clocks that tell Earth time, since I just replied to you at 6.37pm and your post is time stamped 7.15pm. OMG… tell me what alien technology you have that I could patent. Did you send us Bill Gates? Oprah? Halsey Minor?

  • Pat Gray January 13th, 2010 | 7:15 pm

    Could someone tell me just where the SNL buildings are?

  • Latte January 15th, 2010 | 4:40 pm

    As somebody who could be walking on a daily basis to La Taza but doesn’t, I’ll weigh in on the actual topic and say Bravo. Change is definitely needed. I should be able to consider the place my second kitchen and own private coffee bar, but I don’t because of service, pricing and, let’s face it, cleanliness.

    New chance to get some of your neighbors back in there. Can’t wait to see you do better. You’re sitting on a goldmine.

  • Austro January 15th, 2010 | 5:16 pm

    Great to hear that the owners are restructuring the service. I used to frequent La Taza, but stopped after experiencing poor service several trips in a row. It shouldn’t be that hard to serve 10-15 people coffee and a few egg sandwiches; somehow La Taza can’t seem to get it right.

Leave a reply

* People say the darndest things, but if you use language stronger than "darn," ethnically or racially disparaging language, or compare people to Hitler, you may find that we've deleted the comment and/or blocked you from further commenting. Ditto for most unverified information, gross insults, potentially libelous statements, and veering off the topic. To avoid spam, all comments containing more than two weblinks are placed into a holding tank.

Comments for this post will be closed on 11 February 2010.

login | Contents ©2009 The HooK