TikTok led Marisa Gomez to discover a Mexican coffee shop located roughly an hour from where she lives. She, along with many others, travels great distances to the rinconcito for colorful sweet breads, elaborate latte flavors, and the café’s signature aesthetic cups.
It’s all very Instagrammable, but for Gomez, the lure runs deeper than that. The Atascadero resident’s favorite part about Canela Café—which rebranded and opened its doors in March—is that it sells coffee and Mexican sweet bread, unlike other places that are known for one or the other.
“Being from the Hispanic culture, I feel like they have a focus on the sweet bread,” Gomez told the Sun while sipping an iced coffee outside the shop. “That’s part of the culture, so I feel like that’s my favorite part.”
Influenced?
Find Canela Café at 230 E. Betteravia Road, suite D, in Santa Maria. It’s open daily from 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. See the menu online at canela-cafe.com and get updates on Instagram @canelaa_cafe.
One recent September morning marked her second trip to Canela Café. Gomez ordered an iced banana bread latte, her top pick at the moment. Inside her cup, caramel sauce dripped down the sides, enveloping espresso, oat milk, brown sugar, and hazelnut. Silky banana cold foam and cinnamon floated on top.
Gomez said she’s loved all of the sweet breads so far, but she’s especially drawn to the conchas.
“Who doesn’t love a sweet bread with coffee?” Gomez said. “And then the variety of flavors. I just feel the whole atmosphere is very inviting, so we love it because we don’t have that over there [in Atascadero].”
The banana bread latte is one of owner Anthony Ruiz’s personal creations and is easily one of the café’s best sellers, he said. Ruiz and his brother Frankie own Canela Café together, but the business started out as a franchise of a different Mexican coffee shop last year. They decided to rebrand as an independent business and reopened in the spring.
“It just went from zero to 100,” Ruiz said.
His family’s construction background helped with the total refresh of the interior space. They changed the counters, walls, and the lighting. Ruiz is a resin artist, so he redid the floors with a gray and white artistic swirl.
Closing for a couple of days to do the remodel caused some confusion among customers, but they were there to show support after Canela Café officially opened.
“That’s why I have probably a lot of sentimental [value] in it because I’ve been here both times,” Ruiz said about the two eras. “Through our renovations, in the middle of the night, getting home at 3, 4 in the morning. Seventeen-hour shifts, 19-hour shifts and then still having to drive 2.5 hours home.”
Venturing out on their own was a big risk, but Ruiz said it’s been amazing so far. He still lives in his hometown of Salinas and visits Canela three times a week.
Ruiz takes pride in having assembled a hardworking team. They smile at every guest who walks through the door and offer cheerful greetings. The owner said that’s part of why he gets regular customers from all over the Central Coast.
The customer-service philosophy originated when he was growing up on the “east side of Salinas, very humbly,” Ruiz said. He and his siblings sold corn in a cup on a street corner with their dad.
“Sometimes we would get people with bad days, just like we do here,” Ruiz said. “Us being kids, we didn’t know any better. My dad was like, ‘No, no, no. Do this. You do that.’”
Mexican culture also plays a role in his customer service. Ruiz said that when he visits Mexico, he always experiences “tremendous” service.
“I told my brother, ‘When we open our business, that’s how we’re going to do it,’” Ruiz said.
Even so, customers wouldn’t visit if they didn’t enjoy the food and drinks. Cold beverages were especially popular during the summer heat, Ruiz said.
His team makes energy drinks, dirty sodas, and blended frappes. The jamaica raspberry and mango tango refreshers, or aguas frescas, are big hits, too.
“Those are all fresh made. There’s no syrup,” Ruiz said of the refreshers.
Specialty lattes come iced or hot with flavors such as Mexican mocha and caramelo de leche. Canela Café recently launched its fall menu to bring some pumpkin spice into the mix.
“I don’t think there’s something on my menu that I don’t like,” Ruiz said.
Canela Café sells just about as many matchas as it does cups of coffee. The matcha bar includes add-ons like horchata, vanilla, Duvalín, and Mazapán.
“We get premium matcha. We have a direct source from Japan. It’s a very high-end menu,” Ruiz explained. “As well as our food. Our food [menu] is very small. … We have avocado toast, caprese toast, three-cheese grilled cheese, and a torta de jamón, and a club. So, pretty simple.”
Pastries are baked with great care by a trusted baker in Salinas, and then driven down to Santa Maria. Puerquitos, cuernitos, sprinkle cookies, pieces of cortadillo, and apricot cookies made up just the top row of the display case in September.
“Our bread is not your typical bread. … It’s a micro dough, which is tiny. Not a lot of people do them. One because they’re hard, and second because it’s an art,” Ruiz said. “We call it artesanal because, like the cuernitos, not anyone makes them. They make big ones. But tiny ones, micro size, and with the same flavor and stuff like that? No.”
After the long nights and chaotic mornings, Ruiz said, everything worked out for a reason. While they’ve been “blessed by the Santa Maria community” so far, Ruiz sees more achievements on the horizon.
“I feel that people haven’t discovered us yet,” Ruiz said. “I know we can do more. Well, at least I believe. I want to dream. I want to believe it.”
Staff Writer Madison White recommends the banana bread latte. Find her at mwhite@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in September 24 – October 1, 2026.
