Locals Angered By New Miami Restaurant Glorifying Castro, Guevara, Communism: Report

MIAMI, FL — A New York City restaurant planning to open a new location in Miami has upset locals by glorifying communist leaders.

Café Habana, inspired by a Mexican eatery where the late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and Che Guevara once met to discuss plans for the Cuban Revolution, is opening a new location in Flatiron Brickell building, the Miami Herald reported.

This will be the chain’s fifth location. In addition to its two New York City restaurants, including the original that opened in 1997, it also operates eateries in Malibu and Tokyo.

For years, the restaurant’s website included its origin story, sharing that its concept, which fuses Mexican and Cuban cuisines, was “inspired by a storied Mexico City hangout, where legend has it Che Guevara and Fidel Castro plotted the Cuban Revolution.”

After being blasted by Miami locals, Café Habana scrubbed its website of this backstory earlier this week, according to the Herald.

Miami has a large Cuban population, including many who left or had family members who left the country because of Castro’s dictatorship.

Despite removing the story, the restaurant continues to get backlash on social media.

In a recent Instagram video, a Miami influencer, Josue Alvarez called Café Habana out after its owners “conveniently changed” the website.

“On the topside, mixing Cuban and Mexican food is already an insult on its own. You don’t do that,” he said, adding, “Here in Miami there’s two things we don’t accept: communism and gringos making croquetas.”

Another local, Ronnie Overman, told CBS Miami, “Miami history 101 you would know not to promote anything pro-Castro or pro-Che Guevara — and they did that.”

Social media users are also still leaving comments about the matter on Café Habana’s Facebook pages.

One Facebook user wrote, “Not in Miami, it is disrespectful…shame on you, it is like opening a restaurant glorifying Hitler in Poland, we won’t accept it. Castro and Guevara were both assassins who made Cubans miserable and separated our families and (are) still killing out people.”

Another user commented, “Don't open your Miami store down here. Don't poorly appropriate my culture so you can make a buck. Your company is offensive to the Cuban people on so many levels. And if you are actually able to open your store down here, you won't have much success, in Miami we're able to detect fakeness a mile away and your concept isn't even close to authentic.”

Patch has contacted Café Habana for comment.