The Santa Rosa Plaza Mall: A Review

The Santa Rosa Plaza Mall is one of the two "big malls" in not just Santa Rosa, but all of mostly rural Sonoma County. As such, the mall is of a size that would probably be considered medium at best in a larger city, but it's what you've got to work with if you're in the area. Two levels consist of about 110 stores with a Sears and a Macy's anchoring either end.

The style of the mall is clean, fairly modern, middle / upper-middle class. Stores are mostly the sorts of generic chains you expect to find in a mall, with a heavy clothing focus - Aldo Shoes, Piercing Pagoda, Sunglass Hut, Banana Republic, Abercrombie & Fitch, and the Gap. In the daytime it's mostly families, at night it's the focal point for teenyboppers and gangsta wannabes who still live with their parents. Fairly typical middle/upper class city mall arrangement, you probably know the drill.

Unless you're looking for something from a particular chain, there's not a lot of unique features to draw you in here. The Mervyn's location here used to have a decent rotating clearance selection and some killer specials on Black Friday, but they've since closed out due to bankruptcy, and the former store is still abandoned with no word yet on who's going to be moving in. The lone draw here if you aren't looking for teenybopper clothes, Sears, Disney stuff or video games is the Apple Store, of which I think this is the only one in the whole of Sonoma County. The one other unique store that they have that I can think of is a Cigaronix location, where you can get one of those new e-cigs that gives you nicotine and water vapor or something (and allows you to smoke in a lot of non-smoking areas.)

The Food Court is pretty weak with Hibachi-San and Panda Express being the high end choices. They do have one of the few existing Orange Julius locations here though, and Cheez Steak Paradise does make a decent if slightly overpriced beef or chicken cheesesteak. The attached Rubio's on the ground floor is also a halfway decent sit-down Mexican dining option, at least when it isn't packed (check out dollar fish taco night on Tuesdays, but be ready to take them to go.)

If the review seems a little lackluster, my apologies, but that's The Santa Rosa Plaza Mall - total generic Mallness. At least they keep it clean and handle everything fairly well. And the security doesn't ride Segways. Also, since it's a Simon property, you can get one of their superior prepaid VISAs here. Also literally right across the street from the Transit Center, where all major buses passing through the city stop.

The Santa Rosa Plaza Mall
1071 Santa Rosa Plaza
Santa Rosa, CA 95401