After months of uncertainty about its lease, the folks behind Santa Rosa’s popular Mitote Food Park — “the very first Mexican Food Park in Northern California,” according to their website, and a total melting pot of a community hangout — say their last day open at 665 Sebastopol Rd. in the Roseland neighborhood will be next Saturday, March 22. They plan to reopen a few blocks east at 100 Sebastopol Rd. sometime in the future, but they don’t know exactly when yet. From their Facebook announcement, posted yesterday afternoon:
Come enjoy your favorite food trucks, as well as our delicious cocktails this coming week, as Saturday, March 22nd will be our last day of operation at 665 Sebastopol Road. We have been so grateful to our loyal customers and supporters. We do not have a new date yet to reopen down the street at 100 Sebastopol Road, so please help support our trucks by ordering from them for your parties or catering needs until we can give them a permanent home again. Keep following us, as well as our loncheras for news on where to find them in the interim, as well as information on our reopening.
As far as I can tell from Google Maps, the 100 Sebastopol Rd. property is just a big, bleak industrial lot right now — one that you can bet is about to get a whole lot colorful, when Mitote moves in. The Press Democrat has been following the food park’s ongoing lease issues this year; below is some history from a PD story that ran last month.
In 2019, Sonoma County awarded [Mitote Food Park owner and operator Octavio Diaz] a temporary lease for the site, which was already slated to be developed into Tierra de Rosas, a mixed-use commercial and residential village that includes affordable housing, a public plaza and mercado.
Diaz opened Mitote in 2022 and it soon attracted visitors from Santa Rosa and beyond with its cuisine from different parts of Mexico, including Oaxaca, Jalisco, Michoacan, Yucatán and Mexico City, as well as cultural events, music and drinks.
Note from Simone: This piece originally appeared in the weekly email newsletter I write for the Bohemian, called Wine Country Today. Subscribe here!
