La Ronga Bakery

My local go-​to sandwich shop. Very friendly, great food, amazing value. Best bread I have had in the USA (we are British).
Pizza isn’t the best in the world, but always hot and ready, the subs are great, just a great lunch spot all things considered…

I used to live up the street and would stop in for very very inexpensive slices of pizza for lunch. I highly reccommend asking for the sicilian style slices and if you are lucky they’ll give you a free loaf of bread. Prices for rolls and other baked goods are ridiculously low and many customers leave with armfuls of bread.
Make sure to bring cash or go across the street to the liquor store and use the ATM there because the one inside La Ronga is always broken.
The added bonus of going to La Ronga is the awesome bread smell outside.

I do agree that calling this place a «bakery» is a bit of a misnomer — it’s more of place where people go to buy rolls (yes, their entire business seems to revolve around selling massive quantities of rolls) that also happens to sell sandwiches and pizza. And don’t expect a wide variety of artisanal breads here either.
So why am I giving this place 4 stars? Well, previous reviewers who claim the bread is stale must have come here on a bad day or just been flat out of their minds. A great sub starts with great bread and La Ronga makes an amazing sub roll. I’ve tried many of Somerville’s sub joints and have never found as good a balance of price, quality, and quantity as you get at La Ronga.
Cash only.

The bread is amazing. Go for the small french rolls and the Scali. The small french rolls are 25 cents a piece…25 CENTS A PIECE? Where can you get anything freshly baked and so tasty for 25 cents?
Their subs aren’t the best or the worst I’ve ever had but they are worth getting if you’re in a hurry and need some bread. The toughest part about going here is that the women working behind the counter speak about 5 words of English between them so ordering takes a bit of patience and hope that they will get your order right. The owner is American born but he’s a cheap mofo so I’m guessing that he pays his help next to nothing… hence the lack of English.

Entirely confused.
A bakery that serves bland sandwiches on… stale bread? A few danishes and a cookie or two constitute the goods case, while their obvious bread & butter (so sez the giant menu) is their deli action. Pizzas, salads, hoagies — and a lunch combo for $ 7! Why not take the plunge?
I’ll save you the heartache, and postulate that most of the dough responsible for the intoxicating street-​wafting aromas are sent to other businesses for bread baskets, heroes and toast points. Yep, a commercial bakery that stuffs the leftovers with generic lunch meat and sells it to whomever gets lured in by the scent.
Not awful by any stretch. But as two stars states: «Meh, I’ve had better.»

Tease.
The intoxicating scent of baking bread permeates the Spring Hill area. Up and down Somerville Ave– even all the way to Highland. Wandering Pied Piper style through the neighborhood to find the root of this aroma, I opened the doors to La Ronga wide-​eyed and coveting carbs. Got one loaf of bread and gleefully wandered home imagining the turkey sandwiches, french toasts and bread puddings to come.
And then a funny thing happened. It was… blah.
Like dry, flavorless, boring… blah.
Like I don’t even want to finish this kind of blah.
Like is there an industrial strength «Fresh Baked Bread» Glade candle in the back because this can NOT be the reason my neighborhood smells so scrumptious… blah.
Probably on par with your average commercial bakery– but after pumping out that kind of lustworthy flavor and then falling so flat, I’d say La Ronga seriously under delivered.

This is an awesome place to come to for any meal. The keyword here is variety. You can stop in and just grab a dozen rolls and some deli meats, or sit down for a slice of they’re fantastic pizza or steak tips. Service is always quick and polite. They’re prices a very reasonable and don’t sacrifice quality.

I live near La Ronga and always smell their bread baking so I decided to stop in for a breakfast sandwich the other day. I got a normal bacon, egg and cheese on some of their famous bread. It was ok, but tasted a bit blah. You could tell the cheese they were using was a cheap american cheese. I was also expecting the bread to be a bit more substantial or have more flavor. However, staff was friendly and price was very cheap, about 2.50 for a breakfast sandwich, not bad at all!

i use La Ronga bread in my business and think its as good as a commercial bakery can be. for basic sandwich bread at a cheap price, its good. the women working the counter are friendly (though they do know me because i go there almost every day to pick up my order).
people going here expecting artisan breads from a small local bakery will be disappointed, but that is not what this place is. For people/​businesses who don’t want to spend $ 1 or more per roll for a sandwich, La Ronga is a fair alternative to the supermarket.

I can’t review anything here but the bread and the pizza, because that is all I get here.
The bread is awesome always fresh and chewy. I will eat to rolls just on my way home without butter. Its is super cheap as well. This is really the only bread I buy at the moment. It makes awesome sandwiches and toasts well.
The pizza is cheap and medicore at best, its fresh but the sauce is blah and the cheese is usually rubbery. For the money though its a cheap pizza fix.
The service usually stinks in this place.

I grew up in the neighborhood and Laronga scali bread was a staple of my family’s diet for over 25 years at the time. I moved out of Somerville, but always got to continue to experience the Laronga scali bread and other items over the years since. That’s going on over 40 years now. Like anything, businesses change with the times. Recipes are changed, ingredients are maybe not as high quality as in the past, but not because they don’t want to use them, but because of the extremely high cost. That being said…
Laronga bread leaves a bit to be desired for these days. Maybe my tastes have changed over the years, but I know good bread when I taste it. Are they the worst, certainly not, but they are far from the best (that’s another review, look for it). They are adequate and the submarine sandwiches are ok. The deli meats are great and high quality Carrando and Boars Head. It’s all in the bread though, so if that’s not right, neither is the sandwich. From time to time I go back and hope I will be pleasantly surprised, but usually am not. Still, it is the old family neighborhood bakery and has stood the test of time. Give it a try for yourself. I may just be an older cranky ex Somervillian now, but you be the judge. It’s good enough to give it a shot still and I have not given up on it.

We work with their breads and They are fantastic always! Every morning the breads come fresh, soft and tasty… They are wonderfull!

La Ronga was my white stag. As I would pass in on the bus in the morning I would look over and crave what I though to be a delicious fresh loaf of bread just waiting for me inside. At times I’d just be hoofing it to the T and it would be there just daring my to jump inside, you won’t be that late, your boss won’t mind that much. My walks back past it at the end of the day would be the worst when you could still hear the noises of activity inside and smell some of the bread being baked inside but it’s entrance would be blocked by the gap toothed maw of the metal grate.
But then I dared, I changed things up, I made it happen. Good sleep the night before. I lurch out of bed prepared, my alarm hasn’t even had the chance to go off yet. Quick prep and I’m out the door.
Over to Ronga and, that’s weird looks like it’s mostly some sort of baguette well I guess that’s their thing. Grab one, pay the cashier and I’m off. Somehow even a light hold is crushing this bread. I take part out and pull off a piece and it is oddly familiar. take a bite and…
You know those shitty rolls that you get with chinese take-​out
Yep La Ronga makes «baguette» versions of that
The white stag is a squirrel with two twigs taped to it’s head prancing around a park.

Memories of riding bikes with my neighbor Derek to go get bread when his Mom told him to. Good stuff, pretty much a Boston standard.
Their scali bread is the best thing I’ve had from them.

Every single time I go here I say «no mayo», and nearly every single time I get mayo. Today I got a hair too.
Yes, the sandwiches are big and reasonably priced, but this place is now officially on my list of places to avoid at all cost.

I was introduced to La Ronga by my father– a true food snob. He is a brilliant Italian cook — very particular about his ingredients and flavors. Refuses to waste time on anything sub-​par. So, when my dad loves something, I know it’s going to be good.
This is one of the few places he will go for take-​out Italian (Pinocchio’s is one of the few other places). He hates restaurants (they never get it right, he doesn’t trust the quality and freshness of the ingredients, etc). And yet. he digs this pizza. Granted, do NOT order a slice. The slices are left in a glass counter and are not as good. Order a fresh, whole pizza and get there a few minutes early so you can be there as they box it up for you. The sauce, dough and cheese is.well.prefect.
Also, great subs and sliced cheese and meats.

Best Italian sub ever. Hugeish The type of sub that you need to strategically plan your bite at different parts of the sandwich. Excellent pizza as well. Tried a calzone that was just OK. Steak and cheese was decent, but not their signature sandwich.
I don’t go here for bread, but they always have people buying multiple bags of rolls and stuff, so I can see why they’d run out.
If you’re rolling down Somerville Ave, it’s easy to pass this place. Look for Papa John’s across the street… and go to La Ronga.

Maybe they should call themselves La Ronga Pizza Shop, or La Ronga Sandwich Joint, or «Your only hope for lousy French rolls within a half mile, and by the way we may run out of baguettes by 4pm». To call themselves «La Ronga Bakery» is a bit of a misnomer.

You are gonna want to go here to get your canolli. Definately call ahead if you need a ton of them, and then you can fill them yourself. Coolest, ever. They have good pizza and subs as well. If you haven’t been in here, you NEED to go.
Also, they cater. Also, it’s kosher.
It’s been about a billion years since I’ve been here, but… such fond memories.