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La Cumbre Plaza
updated: Feb 26, 2011, 8:30 AM

By the dedicated staff

A longtime Santa Barbara shopping institution, La Cumbre Plaza is an open-air mall in the upper State Street area. It is located at 121 S. Hope Avenue.

The mall is anchored by a Macy's and a Sears, and includes other chain stores, including Pottery Barn, Williams Sonoma, J. Jill, Talbots, J. Crew, Louis Vuitton, Wet Seal, Zales, Trade Secret, Tiffany, Solstice, PacSun, Lucy, Love Culture, Lane Bryant, Gymboree, and others.

Restaurants include Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, Marmalade Café, Plaza Deli, and Pizza Mizza, in the main shopping mall. Other fast food restaurants are in the adjacent strip mall across the parking lot, where there is also a Vons grocery store, and See's Candy shop. For a full list of restaurants and shops in the mall, see their website

Parking is free and accessible on three sides of the mall, from State Street, Hope, and La Cumbre. The nearby Five Points shopping center includes a Ross Dress for Less and other stores.

In recent years La Cumbre has undergone a dramatic transition with many stores closing and others opening. Updates include plentiful outdoor seating, in case you need to wait for someone on a shopping expedition. Fountains and other accents are artistic touches. But don't expect much from the landscaping which Edhat gardening expert Billy Goodnick finds less than perfect.

Events at the mall sometimes include musical entertainment on the weekends. Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny both make appearances there each year.

Edhat snapped the following photos of the mall before we were asked not to take photos by the security guard. When asked why, he said it was a "company policy" but wouldn't share the reasoning behind it.

La Cumbre and Paseo Nuevo are both managed by the same company, but offer very different shopping experiences. Paseo Nuevo is perhaps more popular with visitors, given its location downtown.

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Comments in order of when they were received | (reverse order)

COMMENT 149219	2011-02-26 08:38 AM
It's funny that you are nice enough to profile a mall and give it free, positive publicity, and a mall cop tells you to stop snapping photos (guess you did not talk to management first). The rule is pointless; people can easily take all the pictures they want, undetected, with cell phone cameras. The mall is a lot nicer with the plants and upgrades in recent years, but it still is a mall. Americans have a love hate relationship with malls versus downtown shopping. This mall, like many, has trouble figuring out its identity
COMMENT 149223P	2011-02-26 08:41 AM
I'm glad you mentioned the landscaping, because the 'dry' look of the La Cumbre Plaza walking areas...turns me off. It is unfriendly because of that. I do shop at Macys and Sears, but I don't walk the interior because it depresses me. Make it more lush, a parklike setting/plaza, and I'm bringing my checkbook to shop. Include lots of comfortable benches or chairs, because when I am tired from shopping, I like to people watch while having a latte.
COMMENT 149230	2011-02-26 08:50 AM
Thanks for the article. The landscaping is an improvement,however we preferred it when the area was covered with lemon trees and orchards and there was one grocery store at Kelly's corner and one motel. One could walk safely down the hill without fear of certain death at the end of your journey, crushed by a monster truck and a yelling manic driver, because in his selfish entitled opinion you are walking too slowly on the crossing!
CHILI_CON_ARTCARNE	2011-02-26 08:51 AM
Upscale La Cumbre mall has gone downhill
MCSEAS	2011-02-26 09:13 AM
Why this huge free ad? I don't get it.
COMMENT 149263	2011-02-26 10:02 AM
my favorite tourist attraction in town
COMMENT 149267	2011-02-26 10:08 AM
I'm wondering the same thing as MCSEAS. Why profile a mall as a tourist attraction? I am disappointed to see this on Edhat.
COMMENT 149281	2011-02-26 10:53 AM
It nice because there aren't any homeless begging and pooping in bushes etc.
SMARTYPANTS	2011-02-26 10:54 AM
What cultural distinction does this commercial venue have to offer tourists? You could find this mall in any number of American cities with a temperate climate! The mall owners are not local and they take much of their rental proceeds and spend it in Los Angeles where they are based. Granted tax revenues help our city. The mall owners should be paying for promotion like this!!!
COMMENT 149287	2011-02-26 11:02 AM
I miss the stores that used to be there because i hate downtown. Bring back, The Limited, GAP, Bath and Body Works, Victorias Secret and Red Robin!
COMMENT 149299	2011-02-26 11:40 AM
287 Sigh. Yes, all those and more... Cafe Au Lait, Back Street, Bombay etc etc etc.........
COMMENT 149302	2011-02-26 11:55 AM
How about you guys do something about it, besides rant on a message board... I enjoy the atmosphere at La Cumbre
COMMENT 149317	2011-02-26 12:50 PM
302 I think this message board allows "rant" from all positions. It helps to "get it off one's chest and share. After all, there is little else one can do to alter things,we cannot bring back all our favourite stores.
COMMENT 149327	2011-02-26 01:27 PM
It's so odd that in this day and age the 2nd poster complains about the "dry look" landscaping. It's called xeriscaping, and it's more than a look. The water not wasted on plants is water we will all be able to drink! Plus, they did a lovely job of using attractive pots, varying colors, textures and scale, and scattering pockets of color in many more locations than just the planting beds. You can still sit many places, get a lattte, people watch. And, they welcome dogs, so it's a pretty nice place to hang.
COMMENT 149331	2011-02-26 01:35 PM
Looks like a ghost town to me on the rare occasion I stop by there anymore. Am betting that whoever okayed the "Gucci-fication" of this place is no longer employed. Still used to be pretty vibrant mall 10 or so years ago.
COMMENT 149334P	2011-02-26 01:39 PM
Dogs is reason NOT to go there.
COMMENT 149347	2011-02-26 03:07 PM
I for one support this article on La Cumbre Plaza. For various reasons but mainly for a reminder to shop there. It's a nice center with upscale shops and eateries and if ignored could easily be thrown to the wayside in the interest of condo's etc etc.. Don't think it couldn't happen.
COMMENT 149352	2011-02-26 04:02 PM
The security at La Cumbre Plaza is the biggest ad dumbest joke ever. You should all try to do some shopping at Von's around 11 PM but park across the mall. The security is going to run after you and threaten you to call the cops if you don't move your car. Also you don't have the right to window shopping while the stores are closed. Macerich is a total joke!
COMMENT 149361	2011-02-26 04:44 PM
Used to shop there frequently when it was vibrant and alive. I too miss the stores that were once there.Too upscale for me now, if I go there I also just run into Sears or Macy's and leave. And I do like Marmalade.
COMMENT 149402	2011-02-26 08:55 PM
149334P: "The more one gets to know of men, the more one values dogs." ~Alphonse Toussenel. And even more fitting for you, "The reason a dog has so many friends is that he wags his tail instead of his tongue." ~Author Unknown
COMMENT 149407P	2011-02-26 10:21 PM
I like La Cumbre. It's a pleasant place to take a walk and look at shops. As far as I'm concerned, almost everywhere in town now has either overpriced or uninteresting stores, so this isn't a huge exception. If dogs at this mall bother a person, I'm not sure how tolerant they can be. I only ever see one or two on occasion there. Would love to see a place you can eat in (besides the Deli, which is good but let's face it, sandwiches.) Marmalade is simply dreadful and so is Ruth's Chris.
COMMENT 149410P	2011-02-26 10:25 PM
I miss Cafe Au Lait and the bustling crowds on the weekends and at Christmas. Long gone.
COMMENT 149456	2011-02-27 11:20 AM
There is something deeply wrong with anyone who thinks that a shopping mall is a tourist attraction.
COMMENT 149458	2011-02-27 11:22 AM
They can dress up the place in all the Vuitton/Tiffany's, etc... they want but it's still the "yucky mall".
COMMENT 149465	2011-02-27 11:50 AM
Tourists shop too. Not all tourists arrive and exude from big buses,disappearing in two hours. My husband and I met a nice couple on a two week visit from Georgia in La Cumbre Plaza. They were looking for a music shop where they could purchase a guitar and we directed them to a store in town.
GREG	2011-02-27 12:56 PM
The Farmers' Market is missed at the mall - wonder what could enliven La Cumbre Mall and make it more inviting and interesting.
COMMENT 149499	2011-02-27 02:58 PM
I too miss the Farmer's Market. It was a fun place to visit.
COMMENT 149513P	2011-02-27 03:56 PM
Why is it yucky, 458? Seems clean and nicely landscaped to me. It is just that there aren't shops you want to go buy stuff in or what?
COMMENT 151117P	2011-03-04 06:11 PM
I've always thought that the place would get a ton more business if they put a roof over it...nothing fancy, just something to provide shade and rain protection. We have no covered malls in this town, I think more people would shop there.

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