On the corner of Ocean Boulevard and Junipero Avenue, a Long Beach pop-up stand known for its THC-infused matcha lattes and Mexican hot chocolate attracts customers from throughout O.C. and L.A., stoners and sobers alike.
Yzabella Nardo established Café Rosita last July, first vending at underground after-hours parties that often ended in police raids.
“I went to Amsterdam, and I saw the combination of the coffee shops and the smoke shops, and I was like, ‘We need something like that here in Cali,’” Nardo tells L.A. TACO. “But I wanted it to be more than that. I wanted to be really community-oriented.”
Despite having frequent regulars and viral social media advertisements, only two workers run Café Rosita—Nardo and her boyfriend, Brian “Smitty” Smith. The San Pedro couple sticks out on the field of grass where they vend, cocooned by the stand’s pink decor.
“We partner with a lot of community organizations, like Break ICE L.A., and it's intended to be that way, because I wanted this to be a cafe for the people,” Nardo says.
You may have seen Nardo’s videos come across your Instagram feed, depicting her as she sets up shop or shows off the cafe’s most famed product.
“We do regular matcha, and we have the option to add THC to any of our drinks,” she explains. “It's a coconut oil-based tincture that I make myself. And then we do half a teaspoon. So you can do 20 milligrams, or you can do 40 milligrams, which will be a full teaspoon.”
How did Nardo get the measurements just right to ensure her products hit just right? She conducted taste tests and experiments with her family and friends, of course, before sharing the THC-ladled drinks with the masses.
Before dating Smith, Nardo vended solo. She set up at different locations at various times of the day, while trying to find a steady location. She often found a receptive audience at local events.
“Sometimes the events would get raided,” Nardo says. “[The cops were] like, ‘You don't have a permit to have this event, so we're shutting it down. Everybody needs to get out now.’ And me being a pop-up vendor, I don't have the time to pack everything away, and they're kicking us out . . . So, we try to get the main things, but there are instances where our things did get taken, or we couldn't take everything in one trip.”
As a pop-up street vendor, Nardo has faced some of the most dire circumstances a small business can encounter. Around Christmastime last year, Nardo was still vending on her own when she was robbed after an event by a perpetrator who followed her from one of her pop-ups.
According to Nardo, the incident pushed her to create her own private events, developing a “safe space for people to come together over a shared interest or shared belief.”
The tenets of Café Rosita’s philosophy can be boiled down to “Fuck ICE, let's protect our communities, and let's keep each other safe,” she says.
After seeing Nardo tell viewers via Instagram story that both her grandmother and mother were deported by ICE years ago, it becomes even clearer that Café Rosita’s community-focused mentality goes far beyond surface-level.
From the cafe’s namesake to the motive behind the entire operation, Nardo’s family legacy is deeply intertwined with the business.
Despite never having met her great-grandmother, Rosa, whom she affectionately calls “Mama Rosa,” the cafe is a dedication to this matriarch, who immigrated from El Salvador to the U.S.
“Rosita” also works as a double entendre, the color pink an homage to breast cancer awareness in honor of Mama Rosa. When Nardo’s “favorite cousin” also passed away from cancer, she settled on the idea of opening Café Rosita after contemplating how to best continue forward.
“I just thought to myself, ‘What would they want me to do with my life?’” Nardo says. “I think they want me to really continue my dreams and follow my heart and be a strong, independent woman and try to give back to the community in as many ways as possible. [Café Rosita is] a culmination of my love for my family, my love for my culture, my love for my community, and my love for being myself, a first-generation Indigenous woman in America.”
Following severe budget cuts at her previous job in the public health field—due to the Trump administration—Nardo pivoted to operating Café Rosita full-time. Beyond sustaining the cost of living, Nardo’s proceeds largely go towards supporting local community members, including street vendor buyouts as a way of protecting potential victims of ICE abductions.
“Street vending used to be more popular . . . it's a scary world to be living in, but at the same time, I don't have the [past] full-time job anymore, so I don't have a choice,” she says.
L.A. TACO took a beachside trip and tried Café Rosita’s iced strawberry matcha latte and iced Mexican mocha latte. The stand offers six signature drinks in total, each of them developed by Nardo, based on her personal tastes and childhood favorites. They all start at a baseline cost of $10, with the option to add THC for $5 more.
Nardo measures and whisks the matcha powder right in front of you, before combining it with a luscious, pink strawberry puree and a serving of THC-coconut oil tincture. Mixed together, the oat-based beverage is creamy and sweet, and it doesn’t reek of cannabis despite its ability to deliver a smooth, relaxing high.
Smith, who may or may not be slightly faded herself, operates the “back of house,” cooking the Ibarra hot chocolate over a portable burner. This Mexican hot chocolate is a customer favorite, and it’s actually the same brand Nardo grew up drinking with her family.
Infused matcha lattes are a gray area at best. Long Beach requires cannabis-infused drinks to come through state-licensed retailers rather than sidewalk carts, but Long Beach's historically alternative community doesn't seem to mind.
However, while waiting for your order and taking in the glorious view of the Pacific, catching a breeze as loads of Long Beachers practice some vinyasa on the nearby grass, that is the least of her customers' worries. Despite the yoga, they probably won’t feel as relaxed as you after a matcha from Café Rosita in, give or take, 30 minutes.
Café Rosita ~ Ocean Blvd. & Junipero Ave. Long Beach, CA 90801
