La Segunda Central Bakery

This place is amaze-​balls. It’s a small little deli that with a medium sized menu. They serve breakfast and lunch, however be aware they don’t really have any seating (it’s mostly take out). But their sandwiches are by far ahead of the game. Simple but fresh and made to order, I’m in love with this place

Everything was great. Sandwiches, pastries and bread. Had never tasted real cuban bread now i am hooked. The employees were courteous and fast.

I love this place because it opens up early and I can always get what I need. They are cheap and quick and the breakfast sandwiches are delicious and enough to feed you and a friend. They have a plethora of options for pastries. Go see for yourself! And yes they speak English

I’ve been eating here for decades. This is my go to stop before I fly out of town. The guava and cheese turnovers are amazing and the Cuban bread is fabulous. All it needs is some high quality butter and a light toast in the oven. Yummy.

In my opinion, no trip to Ybor City is complete without a stop at the famed La Segunda Central Bakery located at 15^th Street and 15^th Avenue, just north of the Interstate. The bakery is considered one of the historic landmarks of Ybor City, founded in 1915 by Juan More’.
More’ was born in the Catalan region of Spain, but fought in Cuba during the Spanish-​American War. He learned the art of baking bread in Cuba, and then relocated to Ybor City in Tampa to continue the tradition. Now, 100 years later, the 3^rd and 4^th generation of the More’ family is still baking some of the best-​known Cuban bread in our region.
Many restauranteurs consider La Segunda the gold standard for Cuban bread, and you’ll see it listed by name at many restaurants in our region. As a result, La Segunda is primarily a bread-​making factory operation, and the small retail space is where you can buy loaves of the bread, or sandwiches, salads, pastries, and party platters to take home.
There is no place to sit down and eat inside of the bakery, and so everything is served to-​go. There is some outdoor seating, and plenty of places to enjoy your meal in the nearby parks. Lots of folks will pick up a platter to take to a picnic at Curtis Hixon or Al Lopez parks, or off to a nearby picnic pavilion.
Inside, and to your left is the counter for sandwiches, salads, and party platters. To your right are the display cases for baked goods, sweets, designed-​to-​order cakes, cupcakes, and cookies. When things are busy, you’ll need to take a number and wait for them to call, as it can get pretty intense during peak times.
After their famed bread, La Segunda is best known for their delicious party platters and deli trays. I remember that my favorite days in the office were the lunch and learn presentations when someone would stop at La Segunda and bring in some sandwich platters for the team. Nowadays I am content to stop by and purchase a loaf of their bread, and an assortment of their cookies to deliver to friends.
The pictures don’t do this place justice. The smell and taste are intoxicating. La Segunda Central Bakery should be a bucket list stop for everyone when visiting Ybor City.

I’ve been trying Cuban sandwiches while I’ve been in Tampa all week and everyday I seem to find better and better. I’ll tell you… this place here has ridiculously amazing Cuban sandwiches. Got the traditional Cuban and omg as soon as you bite into it you may feel a little confused bc it seems to good to be real but then a second later you will just smile with enjoyment as all the flavors that are in your mouth. Amazing amazing place! Bought 3 loaves of Cuban bread to smuggle back home from this place as well. Every time I come back to this area I’ll continue my search for better and better Cuban sandwiches!

My colleague and I were traveling on business to Tampa and tried this place for breakfast. This is a very large bakery but doesn’t have tables or seating. There’s a small bench so plan on picking food and coffee up here and taking it with you.
I had café con leche and it was delicious! I also ordered a guava and cheese turnover and it was one of the best pastries I’ve ever eaten. We were there at around 7:30 on a weekday morning so the pastry was still warm. The outside was flaky and so buttery. You definitely need to try this on when you are there!
While we were waiting for a ride to the convention center, we watched as people came in and carried out large bags full of long cuban bread loaves. It seems like they supply most of the fresh cuban bread for folks in the area. When we were in a restaurant in west tampa, I saw a similar brown bag full of cuban loaves in the kitchen. Maybe they supply the restaurants too?
Either way, this is a must stop if you are in the mood for an early morning café con leche and fresh, warm pastry or breakfast sandwich!

So it has been almost 10yrs for me eating here since I moved back down here from Maryland. It’s still INSANELY GOOD! No one can beat this CUBAN SANDWICH!!! Makes you weak in the knees! I’m writing this mid bite!?!
The staff is friendly. They are always frantically moving around and making something! It has a ton of pastries, cookies, sweets etc. Honestly I’ve only had the Cuban and Cuban bread! Has my vote for best CUBAN. No ones has come close yet.
Now let me get back to it NOM’n the hell out of this Samich!

Stop here in the morning! The smell of coffee and fresh baked goods is invigorating. Any coffee is a good choice. I prefer a Cappaccino (hope I spelled that right) but sometimes a café con leche is in order. Egg and cheese sandwich on fresh Cuban bread hits the spot. I suggest getting a sandwich or salad to go for lunch as well. This place is clean and service is friendly. Make sure you have a couple extra moments if you are on the way to work.
Grab a number and wait but trust me well worth it. Call in advance to pick up if you are rushed for time.

I cannot grasp how this place is «Cuban» yet they looked at me weird when I ordered a colada. Is this only a Miami thing? We ended up ordering 2 café con leches which was mediocre coffee at best! My bf ordered the Muffaletta sandwich and I had the Cuban. I guess you can say I was disappointed because I’m used to the Miami Cuban way — pork, ham, cheese, mustard and pickles. I had no idea Tampa Cuban sandwiches were slightly different. They add lettuce, tomatoes and salami. By all means, it was a great sandwich, it’s just not what I thought it would be so I left really disappointed. My boyfriend loved his though — and all of the pastelitos and desserts looked really delicious as well!

One of the best places in Tampa for a Cuban sandwich. This gem has been around for years. I remember when I was a little girl, my aunt would come here and buy loaves and loaves of Cuban bread. Well years later, the bread is the same, AWESOME! Which makes for an AWESOME Cuban sandwich. They pile the meat high with all the fixings except onions. Then «special sauce» is added to the sandwich. I typically like mayo and mustard on both sides of my bread when requesting a Cuban, however, their «special sauce» is a pleasure to my tastebuds! I do think the Cuban is a little pricey compared to other places, but hey you get what you pay for.
There is only one other place in Tampa that I feel is a step better than La Segunda (I’ll review that one later)
Don’t forget to get your sandwich pressed!

Okay okay okay, you might be wondering how a Cuban bakery can get three stars…
First let me start by saying, I love Cuban food. Since moving to Tampa, it’s held a special place in my heart… and my stomach. However, after coming to La Segunda for a breakfast sandwich, I have come to learn that Cubans are good at baking bread, but not necessarily making a breakfast sandwich with that said bread.
I ordered a sandwich with cheese, egg, and sausage. The portions are pretty decent for the price. The sandwich itself has enough for two meals and is roughly $ 5. However, there is a serious lack of seasoning and taste in the eggs. I was very hopeful, but ended up highly disappointed. Stay clear from those breakfast sandwiches, better off picking up a McMuffin.
They have an assortment of different pastries and other lunch sandwiches that I didn’t get to try. From what I hear, they’re supposed to be pretty good so I might give La Segunda another shot.

As I grabbed a number and waited my turn, I took my time looking over all the sweet options in the cases. I wanted to get one of everything but I decided to use some self-​control so I just ordered a Cuban sandwich and a guava cheese pastry. They also had some ready to go boxed salads that looked okay. I saw people leaving with 4 – 5 long loaves of the bread. After eating my sandwich, I now know why they would get so many.
The pastry was decent but the Cuban sandwich was amazing. It was huge, the bread was buttered perfectly, and service was pretty quick. I would definitely say that this place has my all-​time favorite Cuban sandwich. Sweets are also my weakness so it’s great that they have all these options when I go in for my sandwich fix.

This a wonderful place for very good pastries and breads. We stopped in for a quick take-​out of Cinnamon Rolls and Guava Cheese Turnovers, and loved every molecule. The service is quick, the selections are tasty, the prices are very reasonable and the beautiful ladies at the counter are just pleasant, helpful and delightful.
We’ll be back, thanks to each of these reasons!

I had the media noche sandwich (pressed) and the guava/​cheese turnover. I thought it was okay — not bad and not the best I ever had, right in the middle. We parked on the street on the side of the restaurant but there was also some parking up front. Note: They close at 3pm on Saturday. I saw them locking at up 2:59pm so if you get there after 3pm don’t expect to be let in.

A lot of people don’t know this about me but for the past few years I’ve been running an underground Cuban bread fighting society. Each week I find the most rugged, battle tested and dangerous loaves of Cuban bread that the Bay area has to offer and I pit them against one another. One of my most memorable battles took place this summer. It was a frenzied affair between the Cuban bread at La Segunda Central and one I picked up at my local chain grocery store. The showdown went like this:
Ladies and Gentleman! In this corner, weighing in at 16 ounces, baked fresh daily, covered with a palm frond, looking spry and fit and costing two fifty is La Segunda Central’s Cuban Bread! (fans go ballistic!)
And over here, weighing in at a measly 12 ounces, reheated fresh daily, not a palm frond in sight, looking limp and little and costing two thirty-​nine is Local Chain Grocery Store’s Cuban bread! (golf claps abound)
The two breads met in the center of the ring. La Segunda’s was puffier and more airy. It danced around the ring quickly and efficiently. The grocer’s version was slower and denser. It had trouble dodging the one-​twos that La Segunda’s bread sent its way. Thirty seconds in, La Segunda sent the grocery store Cuban to the floor. The bread never got up. It laid there until well after all the fans had shuffled out the door. At that point the trainer came in, picked it up and tossed it into the garbage.
About the time the loaf hit the trashcan I realized that for years I had been settling for reheated, small, limp Cuban breads because of the convenience of driving down the road and having one within ten minutes. That settling caused me to miss out on some fine Cuban bread. Never again, I swore, would I settle for anything less than good.
Aside from the Cuban bread, I was also very pleased with the customer service that La Segunda offered. The place was packed each time I visited and people behind the counter were running a mile a minute. I expected some rushed service and order mistakes. But when I got to the counter, the lady taking my order took a lot of time to make sure my order was exactly right. She even snuck some Cuban cookies into my bag for my daughter. Free of charge.
So why, if I’m getting gigantic loaves of cheap bread and free desserts, did I only rate La Segunda as three stars? That would be because of the desserts. There are oodles of desserts for sale in La Segunda’s display case, each one looking like some sort of hot dessert model. We’re talking guava, cheese, strawberry, chocolate, a little bit to love for everyone. I always have a tough time deciding what to buy because it all looks so good. But every time, no matter what I choose, I take that dessert home and it always lets me (or my wife) down a bit. The taste just doesn’t match the looks.

After having a behind the scenes tour of this place and seeing all that goes into making it thrive, I have a special place in my heart for this local bakery.
I go a lot on weekends to stock up on goodies to spoil myself until Monday. I have discovered that it is a trial and error process figuring out which items are crazy good, and which are just okay. On the top of the scale you have the guava & cheese pastry, the bear claw with apricot, the cinnamon buns, the lemon meringue pie, and the oatmeal walnut cookie. On the lower end you have the sticky bun, the strawberry cake, the sugar cookies, and some of the Italian cookies.
You absolutely can not go wrong with their salads and sandwiches, though. My favorite salad is the Italian — a generous portion of greens, meats and cheeses and it is delicious. I also love the breakfast sandwich of pressed Cuban bread, egg, cheese, and bacon — it, quite literally, is perfect.
Park in front, on the side, or in the dirt lot across the street. When you walk in — take a number! Don’t start looking, don’t go to the register, just take a number and then look around. You’ll be glad you did.

I’m pretty sure the Cuban bread we bought here was 3.5 feet long and less than $ 3. They are the official bread distributor for the Columbia, so if you are local maybe you already know how amazing it tastes. We all totally enjoyed the mini cakes we got, one that was like a mound bar with coconut, another was chocolatey marshmellows and a vanilla rainbow cake. The staff was also super sweet. I really wish there was more of unique selection. There were a lot of little cookie choices, but that’s not usually what we are aiming for at bakery stops.
We will however no longer be buying our Cuban bread anywhere else.

I am embarrassed to say that being a Tampa native, April 2015 was the first time I have actually been to La Segunda Central Bakery. Now they sell their bread to a lot of local restaurants so Ive had their Cuban bread courtesy of the various sandwiches around town but this would be my first true experience at the bakery itself.
I’ve been on a journey to discover my favorite local cuban sandwich so when I was driving down Columbus on the way from an appointment, I could not resist the urge to stop. It took a minute to find parking because of the collection of one ways but I found it easiest to just park on the street across the street.
And to my surprise this place was busy and it wasn’t even peak lunch time. I was interested to find that they have an array of baked goods and pastries, traditional cuban food like stuffed potatoes and empanadas in addition to a variety of sandwiches.
Although my original intent was to get a Cuban sandwich, I ended up leaving with media noche and guava and cream cheese pastry. The media noche as prepared at La Segunda is a the same as the cuban but instead of cuban bread they use a fresh baked sweet bread. I thought it was good, the bread was not as sweet as I anticipated but I really enjoyed the sandwich.
I finished my meal with a guava and cream cheese pastry and it was delicious. Well if I am honest I started and ended my meal with a guava and cream cheese pastry. I was so hungry I started eating the pastry before they had even made my sandwich. It was practically consumed before I even made it out of the restaurant. I enjoyed it so much I was tempted to buy a second for later on that day but I thought that was just being too greedy. Next time I know better and I will buy two for sure.
** I have since been back for a Cuban sandwich, it’s just as good as the media noche and I think it’s a bigger sandwich. So for relatively the same taste at relatively the same price, Ill take the bigger sandwich all day! Although the media noche does provide some variation to the traditional cuban sandwich which is nice on occasion.

Been twice to La Segunda… First time was a few years ago and I was ignored by the cashiers for 5 min so I walked out. Visited them again today and the service was much better and I noticed a renovated interior and menu board.
I ordered the Elanaruz sandwich — turkey with guava preserves and cream cheese on pressed Cuban bread ($ 6.99). Sounds good, right? Well, it would’ve been better if they had used less cream cheese. It was really overwhelming. I had to scrape a lot of it off but still, the taste and smell of the cream cheese overpowered the sandwich. If they had used more guava preserves, it would have had a better balance. The Cuban bread though had good flavor. So I recommend that if you order this, tell them to go light on the cream cheese.
While waiting for 10 – 15 min for the sandwich to be made, I noticed an awkwardly placed sign that said the June special was buy 1, get 1 free on the cannolis. Sold! $ 2,50! Not the best cannoli I’ve had… that title goes to Moreno Bakery… but it is decent. The shell was fried a little too much and overall, it was a little too sweet. But it satisfied my sweet tooth.
I’ll return again soon to try another sandwich and pastry. Hopefully, it will be even better and I can bump them up to 4 stars. But unless they renovate it again or expand so there are tables to sit at, that will be as high as they can go. As of now, they just have a small bench to sit at while waiting for your food.
After third visit, I still think it’s 3 star.