Home Care In Santa Monica, CA

Matilda’s is a new neighborhood bakery and cafe in Santa Monica. It offers fresh bread, pastries, sandwiches, and coffee. The cafe also offers indoor and outdoor seating and is named after the owner’s daughter.

Matilda’s Bakery and Cafe Opens in Santa Monica

Matilda’s Bakery and Cafe opened its doors in Santa Monica following its soft opening on October 2. The cafe is located at 3200 Airport Avenue and is owned by Sean Martin. Founding baker François Pied and lead baker Abel Pulsifer oversee the bakery’s baking operations.

The bakery combines European baking traditions with California ingredients and techniques. Its team describes the concept as “a California bakery with an accent.” It brings together flavors and ingredients from Europe with California’s baking culture.

François Pied grew up in southern France, where his family sparked his interest in cooking. He started a home bakery called Pour Toi before pursuing baking professionally. He later trained at École Lenôtre in Paris and worked at bakeries in France, Montana, and Los Angeles.

Abel Pulsifer is originally from Gilbert, Arizona, and has worked at bakeries across Arizona, Los Angeles, and New York. He and Pied first worked together at Bub and Grandma’s in Los Angeles.

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Matilda’s menu includes croissants, baguettes, sausage rolls, shakshouka croissants, honey butter toast, and other pastries. The croissants are made with French flour and butter, local whole grains, and a slow fermentation process.

The baguettes are made with organic French flour, fresh yeast, and sea salt from Brittany. Customers can enjoy them with the butter menu featuring eight different types of butter.

Matilda’s sources much of its grain from Hayden Flour Mills in Arizona, including White Sonora Wheat, a historic grain variety from the 1600s. The bakery slow-ferments its products for at least 18 hours, while its croissants take four days to make.

For coffee, Matilda’s has partnered with Caffè Luxxe for sourcing and staff training. The bakery and cafe is open Wednesday through Sunday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.

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A bitter union battle has erupted at a Santa Monica Sephora after workers voted against organizing — only for the union to challenge the result and leave the store in limbo for months.

Employees at the sprawling 6,750-square-foot beauty store on Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade told The California Post they’ve been harassed and bullied by officials with United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770 after rejecting the union — with workers claiming the bitter standoff has fueled a staff exodus and cost employees hours and benefits.

“They’re just stuck waiting and have this union that again purports to represent workers, but is doing the opposite of it here,” said Patrick Semmens, vice president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, which is providing informal legal help to the frustrated workers.

Last year, pro-union employees began floating the idea of unionizing the makeup store, workers told The Post.

UFCW Local 770 represents workers across grocery, retail, healthcare and other industries.

Around November, a union representative came into the store and handed a manager papers and documents, said Sandra Wael, 24, who leads a team at the Sephora location.

On Dec. 2, a petition seeking an election for employees to decide whether to unionize was filed with the National Labor Relations Board.

In the month leading up to the election, Wael said she and others were bombarded by UFCW with “lies” and “harassment.”

“They kept texting me, texting me nonstop, texting other girls, making fun of the work we were doing,” Wael said. “I told them I’m not interested, and I don’t want them texting me anymore. They still texted me, telling me I should be scared, telling me that my manager was lying to me, telling me stuff that’s not true.”

Wael said union representatives would also mock team activities employees put together. She said she felt the union simply wanted to collect fees from them.

Another worker, licensed beauty advisor Leslie Lopez-Santiago, 27, said she didn’t personally receive communications from the union but was dead-set on opposing the unionization drive after a similar bad experience at a previous job.

She said she heard from co-workers that the union offered “false promises,” such as better benefits if they joined.

Workers said a majority of the 25 employees rejected unionization in an election held between Jan. 7 and Jan. 10, with 14 voting “no.”

But on Jan. 17, UFCW Local 770 filed objections to the election, according to the NLRB’s case docket.

Workers who voted “no” were furious.

“I didn’t understand why we would have a second vote when the majority had already ruled,” Lopez-Santiago said. “I thought this was bulls–t.”

The grounds for the union’s election objections are not disclosed on the NLRB’s public docket.

Semmens said workers fear the challenge could ultimately result in another election.

A request for comment and further details sent by The Post through UFCW Local 770’s media inquiry form was not returned.

In a pre-election text message viewed by The California Post, a union representative claimed Sephora wanted to “intimidate you, pressure you and persuade you to vote no” by refusing to voluntarily recognize the union.

Sephora told The Post it “respects our employees’ right to make their own decision through a fair election process” and respects the outcome of the vote.

Addressing the union’s challenge, the company added: “We will continue to respect that process and remain committed to supporting our employees, listening to their feedback, and maintaining an environment where everyone is supported and heard.”

Lopez-Santiago disputed claims that the company tried to sway workers’ votes, saying management and corporate officials deliberately remained neutral in their interactions about the union.

“We were all well aware of it. We all talked about it months ahead, and we all talked about it in depth, and everyone was already comfortable with their own decisions,” she said, claiming it felt like the union was attempting a power grab.

Now, the workers are waiting for the National Labor Relations Board to make a decision. The case remains open nearly nine months after the union filed its objections.

Workers say the limbo has taken a real toll.

Tensions have emerged between pro- and anti-union camps, while multiple colleagues have quit the small team to escape the drama, shrinking the workforce to about a dozen, employees said.

It’s “just causing chaos and separation between the team, which is something that’s not okay because we are one of the stores where, whenever we get people coming in to support us, they always say our store feels like home,” Wael said.

To make matters worse, Wael said managers have been unable to expand the team — only replace workers who leave — while employees have complained about being understaffed.

Lopez-Santiago said the dispute even delayed her getting workplace benefits she had been looking forward to.

Sephora had moved late last year to change its “flex” staffing model at some stores, with Lopez-Santiago hoping to transition to a part-time position eligible for additional benefits.

Lopez-Santiago’s transition from “flex” was put on indefinite hold because of the union dispute. Last month, she finally decided to reapply for a part-time role to get the benefits.

Ultimately, workers are growing tired of the wait.

During the summer, they sent a petition to UFCW Local 770 demanding that the union withdraw its election objections, accusing it of refusing to listen to the employees it wanted to represent, according to an image of the letter viewed by The Post.

The tax software giant will open two floors in January before expanding into a third floor and rooftop later in 2027.

SANTA MONICA, CA — TurboTax is making a major move into brick-and-mortar retail, and the company has chosen Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade for a flagship location that will eventually span three floors and a rooftop.

The tax software giant plans to open the first two floors of its new flagship at 1408 Third Street in January 2027, with a third floor and rooftop expected to follow later in the year, company spokesperson and CPA Lisa Greene-Lewis told Patch.

The Santa Monica location is already listed on TurboTax's website, but the scale of the company's plans for the property — and its decision to establish a flagship on the Promenade — have not previously been announced.

"We're making a significant investment to create a one-of-a-kind TurboTax flagship, designed around access to expert tax and financial guidance year-round," Greene-Lewis told Patch in written answers following an interview last week.

Asked why the company chose Third Street Promenade, Greene-Lewis said both the building and its location played a role. "We're excited by how the unique qualities of the building allow us to serve the Westside community in new ways," she said. "It was also important to us to establish our flagship in a culturally significant LA destination."

The Santa Monica flagship is part of a nationwide push into physical locations by Intuit, TurboTax's Mountain View-based parent company. Intuit announced last year plans for approximately 20 TurboTax stores in major U.S. cities alongside nearly 600 smaller Expert Offices.

The strategy took its most visible form Jan. 15, when the company opened its flagship store at 463 Broadway in New York City's SoHo neighborhood.

Rather than simply recreating a conventional tax-preparation office, Intuit has designed the stores around a hybrid model that allows customers to move between TurboTax's digital platform and face-to-face assistance.

Customers can begin a return themselves at home and later have a local expert pick up where they left off, Greene-Lewis said. They can also walk into a store without having decided whether they want someone else to prepare their taxes.

A concierge can help customers determine which documents they need, discuss their tax situation and connect them with an appropriate expert. Customers can then track the progress of their return through the TurboTax app.

"We just want to meet people where they are," Greene-Lewis said. "There are people, as we know, that want to do their taxes online. We have millions of customers that do that. But then we are finding that people are still searching for help."

TurboTax says its tax experts have an average of 13 years of experience.

TurboTax is also trying to make its stores look and feel considerably different from the traditional tax-preparation office. The company partnered with global architecture and design firm Gensler on the design of its physical locations, which Greene-Lewis described as Japandi, a style combining Japanese and Scandinavian influences. The stores are intended to provide a calmer environment for people dealing with the often stressful business of preparing their taxes.

"We actually did research to see how people feel in the stores, and we just want them to feel calm in this situation because, as we know, a lot of people are stressed out about their taxes," she said.

The concept includes spaces where customers can sit and work independently as well as areas for meeting tax experts. TurboTax also plans to use the locations for tax and financial-literacy events.

The SoHo flagship even includes a sound bath, Greene-Lewis said. She does not expect Santa Monica's store to have one, although coffee and espresso are part of the concept.

TurboTax describes its stores as modern spaces designed for appointments and walk-ins, where customers can ask questions, begin their own returns with expert guidance or hand the entire job to a tax professional.

The building TurboTax has selected gives the company considerably more room than a conventional tax office. City planning records show a new three-story commercial building has been approved for 1408 Third Street Promenade. The 20,625-square-foot, 60-foot-tall project was filed in November 2019, with Blatteis & Schnur Inc. and Armbruster Goldsmith & Delvac LLP listed as the applicants.

Commercial real estate materials for the 1404-1408 Third Street property describe approximately 26,750 square feet across three levels, along with a roughly 5,000-square-foot rooftop. The property was marketed specifically as a potential "flagship retail opportunity."

Greene-Lewis said TurboTax will open two full floors to the public in January before expanding into the third floor and rooftop later in 2027. The company already operates a smaller location in Culver City, which Greene-Lewis said opened during the previous tax season. She said the Santa Monica flagship will be considerably larger.

The expansion is driven in part by where consumers are searching for local tax assistance, according to Greene-Lewis. She said TurboTax expects to have more than 650 locations around the country, with the goal of putting local support within 25 miles of 80 percent of taxpayers who use assisted filing services.

Intuit's most recent published rollout figures describe 20 TurboTax stores and nearly 600 Expert Offices nationwide. For Santa Monica, however, the investment is intended to extend beyond the annual rush to file tax returns.

The flagship will offer access to tax and financial guidance throughout the year, Greene-Lewis said, while also creating local employment opportunities as TurboTax expands its in-person workforce.