LaTasha Fitzwilliam says she cooks with simple ingredients at her new café, but her food tastes extra special because “it’s mostly seasoned with love.”

“I have a passion and love for this that I think is going to separate me from someone else,” she told the Courant. “Cooking with love is like you’re not cooking because you have to.”

Fitzwilliam, 34, recently fulfilled her dream of opening her own business, The Spot Cafe, 649 Burnside Ave., East Hartford.

The location was previously home to Rosa’s Cafe & Bakery, which announced it’s closure in August due to risings costs and personal reasons.

Fitzwilliam, once a grill cook at Rosa’s, serves breakfast and lunch at the new place. While the business is not a bakery as Rosa’s partly was, doughnuts are made there as well as the Latino pastries that Rosa’s made popular.

Fitzwilliam, who grew up cooking and watching Food Network, loves to see the smiles of satisfaction on customer’s faces when they take a bite of her breakfast burritos, home fries, popular Cuban sandwich or anything else.

“I love to hear the feedback and see the empty plates,” she said. “Every time I put something out there a little piece of me goes with it.”

Love is such a strong theme for her that the wall decoration includes an image of a coffee cup with steam in the shape of hearts coming off the top.

Fitzwilliam worked as a grill cook at Rosa’s in 2021 and later left for a higher paying job in the food industry. But she stressed Rosa’s owner Edna Cruz was a wonderful boss and person.

After leaving, Fitzwilliam, who lives five minutes from the cafe, would stop in occasionally to say hello, and grab a bite. When she visited in March, she learned from the family they were looking to sell.

Fitzwilliam tried everything she could to get a loan, but to no avail, until an aunt stepped up to help.

Now she’s living the dream – so dreamy that she still “can’t believe it.”

“I love it, everything about it. I don’t believe it.” Fitzwilliam said. “I don’t know when it’s all going to hit me.”

Fitzwilliam said she kept a lot of what Rosa’s had on the menu and added some items, such as pancakes, French toast and on Sundays only, waffles.

She kept the Rosa’s breakfast special, two eggs, choice of meat, home fries, toast, in honor of the family. Cruz said she named the cafe after her mother, Rosa, who helped anyone who needed a meal.

The lunch menu at The Spot Cafe includes Philly cheese steak, chicken Philly, tuna salad, chicken salad and The Cuban, a customer favorite sandwich.

One customer recently told Fitzwilliam hers were the best home fries they’d ever had.

“It made my day,” she said.

They also serve coffee, tea and Hosmer Mountain Soda.

The color scheme in The Spot Cafe is red, white, black, and grey, the first three colors a nod to Trinidad, from where her parents came.

Fitzwilliam said the cafe’s hours and proximity to home are perfect for her family life.

On Sundays she brings her daughter, 4, to work, as she can spend time with her and is one of the ways that demonstrates how the cafe is child and “family friendly.

“I want everybody to feel like we’re family when they come in,” she said.

Customers who weighed in on the new café in online reviews say the service is fast and the food is great. The Cuban sandwich is a fan favorite, as well as the desserts.

One reviewer wrote: “Best place in East Hartford for breakfast and lunch and wait to see what else is in store for this place.”

Another wrote: “Delicious Iced Coffee and the Cuban is my favorite… SO DELISH!”

Another summed her feelings up with, “Yummy.”

The cafe is open Tuesday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday from 7a.m. to 3p.m. and Sunday from 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 a.m.