Cafe Zella will live on –– just not in the way its legion of loyal customers might expect.
The longtime breakfast and lunch spot across from UCLA Medical Center on Wilshire Boulevard abruptly closed earlier this year, leaving a noticeable void for hospital workers and neighborhood regulars who relied on its selection of sandwiches, salads and coffees.
“I ate at that cafe almost every day,” said Mary Anne Roberto, owner of the neighboring Elder-Well Adult Day Care Center. “It was popular in the community for many years. The staff there was just amazing. I saw the nurses—our healthcare heroes—walking across the street for their breaks every day. And then one day, it just closed.”
For weeks, confusion lingered.
“They kind of left the staff behind” Roberto told The Sun. “And just sitting there, and every day, more nurses came from UCLA asking, ‘What happened?’ Some of them would knock on our door, because I was the only one open here.”
But what started as uncertainty quickly turned into opportunity.
Roberto, who spent a decade managing restaurants in Brentwood and Culver City, began to feel a pull back into the business. “I was like, something’s calling me here,” she said. “I think it’s time to circle back. It’s important for me to keep it a small business for the community.”
From her front-row vantage point, she saw firsthand how much the cafe mattered—not just to locals, but to the steady stream of doctors, nurses, and hospital staff Roberto refers to as “healthcare heroes.”
“I see how many people ate there, but more than anything, everyone coming across in their scrubs,” she said. “And I was like, they need something here. So I just decided to go for it.”
The new chapter will come with a new name. Roberto plans to reopen the space as Wellside Cafe, but with a familiar feel and core menu.
“Why fix what’s not broken?” she asks.
Wellside Cafe will retain much of what made Cafe Zella popular. Roberto has already rehired key members of the original team, including the head chef and a front-of-house staffer named Leslie. She is working closely with them to recreate customer favorites.
The menu will be “very similar,” she said. “Everyone that stops by has been telling us what their favorite things are.”
At the same time, Roberto hopes to expand the concept with more grab-and-go and take-home options aimed at busy hospital workers and local families.
“I would like to be able to do to-go food, or grab-and-go, or premade kind of items you could go home and finish cooking,” Roberto said. “I’m Italian—who doesn’t want a lasagna to take home? Come on now.”
If all goes as planned, Wellside Cafe is expected to open in mid-August.
Cafe Zella was previously owned by Alan Yang and Nina Ngoy, a Cambodian refugee who shared in a 2021 Spectrum 1 News interview that the business had fallen $30,000 behind on rent during COVID-related closures — financial challenges it appears to have never fully overcome.
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