Landmark Rosine’s Restaurant to Add Sand City Spot

July 15, 2025 – Replicating the downtown Monterey institution that is Rosine’s Restaurant would be pretty much impossible. 

The towering homemade cakes, the old-school vibe, the small-town familiarity, even the signature lasagna and minestrone, can all be imitated.

But along with the singular location and the fact scaling a family-run spot automatically involves a different energy, true duplication wouldn’t be doable.

The family behind it has understood that for a while.

So their expansion plan makes a lot of sense: Rosine’s first offshoot won’t be a sit down dining spot, but a fast-casual cafe that plays the hits in a fresh and functional way. 

Caffé by Rosine’s will set up across from Target Sand City in a former Starbuck’s—part of a promising trend also spotted with local and independent Conspiracy Coffee replacing the chain in Capitola Mall.

The optimistic open date lands late August, which means September or further out is in play, though the place has been gutted and re-walled, with cabinets going in any day.

Co-owner/operator Susan Culcasi—who’s married to Jim Jr., son of founders Rosine and Jim Sr.—lays out an anticipated lineup family classics (lasagna, minestrone, cakes), breakfast sandwiches and wraps, prepped family meals designed to perform great upon reheat, and signature coffee drinks.

“We’ll be going with what’s the freshest, and with what guests like, and feel it out as we go,” she says. “Cakes will be easier to grab and go—’You want a strawberry cake at last minute? You got it.'”

The leadership trilogy that happens on Alvarado Street downtown—Jim Jr. largely overseeing the back of the house, John the front, Susan behind the scenes—will persist in Edgewater Shopping Center, with new opportunities for the business’ third generation.

John caught the craft cocktail bug when his 21st birthday more or less coincided with Rosine’s gaining a liquor license and adding an adult beverage program in 2017.

Now he’ll train that lens on coffee: He describes an ongoing plunge into brewing espressos and lattes—and a passion for homemade syrups including a horchata for cold brews and maple bacon for a cappuccino.

Those will also come in handy for house fizzies.

“We are Italian at the end of the day,” he says. “So there will be an amaretto syrup and Italian sodas.”

And they are Rosine Culcasi’s descendents, by family tree and a tendency toward hospitality.

She’ll be helping look after things from above after heading to the cake shop in the sky a little over a year ago.

Her husband Jim got emotional when the family met to see her name grace the Sand City building, and grandson John imagines his nona might too.

“She would love it,” he says. “I can picture her seeing it, shedding a tear and just being so happy.”

More at Rosine’s Restaurant and Caffé by Rosine’s Instagram pages.