Local family brings new menu, energy to longtime SLO County cafe. Here’s a look
Hungry locals eager to try the latest iteration of the Cambria Café finally got to do so in late January when the popular downtown restaurant did a soft reopening under new ownership. It had been closed since October.
Knowing the locals is easy for the café’s four co-owners, all Bonillas, who have been familiar faces in town and part of the North Coast fabric for decades.
Judging by the smiles, comments and emptied plates from the lunchtime diners on Jan. 31, reaction so far has been enthusiastic, something confirmed by one of the new owners, Becky Bonilla. She said later that people were lined up out the door the next morning and Sunday.
As customers left the standing-room-only place at 2282 Main St., several told her, “We’ll be back soon!”
She, daughter Alexa Bonilla and Silvia Bonilla (wife of Becky’s husband’s cousin) bustled around the busy dining room, taking and serving orders and delivering take-outs while greeting old friends and making new ones.
Everybody was digging into their meals and sharing their thoughts about the new eatery’s menu and outlook.
Some were even reflecting back on the history of the location, from an 1870s blacksmith’s shop, hotel, bar, liquor store, bank, deli and eateries with such names as Old Town Food Factory, Bob & Jan’s Deli and Grandma Porte’s (an homage to a former beloved Hearst Ranch cook.)
What’s on the new menus at Cambria Café?
As Cambria Café, the menu had morphed as ownership changed. Hearty ranch food was followed by Nanyeli Mendoza’s Mexican specialties for two decades until 2021 and, then most recently, Mediterranean foods were offered.
The Bonillas have gone with a classical Central Coast breakfast menu from the small kitchen’s griddle and pans, served from 8 to 11:30 a.m.
The lengthy, double-sided list offers three Benedicts, various scrambles, three kinds of pancakes, Belgian waffles, raspberry-filled and classic French toast, biscuits and gravy and more.
The Hispanic early-day offerings include huevos rancheros, three burritos, a chorizo-spinach omelet and a chipotle-shrimp omelet plus a few nods to their Michoacan heritage.
For instance, the menu includes fluffy buttermilk Mazapan pancakes topped with crushed Mexican peanut candy, then drizzled with sweet lechera milk and a topknot of whipped cream.
Cambria Café’s lunch offerings, served from 11:30 to 3, include Antojitos Michoacanos (“little cravings”). Those Hispanic meals are served side by side with All-American sandwiches, burgers and salads.
The former category includes the usuals you’d expect at a Mexican taqueria.
But among the tacos and burritos, diners will find: A quesabirria packed with birria beef simmered in spicy broth, then shredded; chilaquiles; a trio of chicken enchiladas in a sweet/slightly spicy chocolate mole sauce; a wet burrito the size of a loaf of quick bread; and the unusual chavindeca, a stuffed and stacked, two-tortilla quesadilla.
It helps when you know the territory and the people there know you
Becky Bonilla has a long family legacy on the North Coast.
Her parents, Carmen and Emigdio Torres, spent decades working on the Hearst Ranch.
A SLO County native, Becky was raised on that San Simeon ranch and went all through school in the Coast Unified School District.
As her mother Carmen had for 30 years until she retired a few years ago, Becky worked in the Hearst Ranch’s guest services division and still does, along with continuing to pull some shifts at Moonstone Beach Bar & Grill.
Her husband, Antonio Bonilla, has worked at the Bar & Grill for a dozen years, after working up from dishwasher to bartender. He’s Cambria Café’s restaurant manager, covering all bases.
The couple has three daughters: Alexa, Jackie (a student at Cal State Fullerton), and 12-year-old Gamila, who attends Santa Lucia Middle School.
In the kitchen, Roberto Bonilla is the lead cook and Antonio’s cousin. He also works at Linn’s restaurant, after spending years working on that family’s ranch.
He and wife Silvia, who is the café’s lead Spanish-speaking server, also have three young daughters.
The Bonillas haven’t yet had time to update Cambria Café’s social media presence from the former ownership, Alexa said with a grin, but that’s coming soon.
In the meantime, for details or for take-out orders, dial 805-203-5009.
As has been the case for years, Cambria Café is now open for breakfast and lunch, but it’s closed on Wednesdays.
