Food Truck Owner Planning to Create a Franchise
Once located outside the Chevron gas station next to the Florida Highway Patrol office, The Cuban Guy Cafe & Grill (Now Havana Restaurant) serves about 50 to 100 customers daily, owner Ubaldo Molina says. There is only one food truck now, but Molina plans to develop the business into a franchise with multiple locations around North Florida.
Locals line up outside the "Cuban Guy Cafe & Grill" (Now Havana Restaurant) food truck before it even opens, eager to get a taste of traditional Cuban Food. Inside the green food truck off of U.S. 90, a married couple cooks up fried yuca, black beans and rice, sweet plantains, empanadas, and other Cuban dishes. Ubaldo Molina, also known as Laz, and his wife, Leyanis Garcia, have lived in Lake City for 8 years and started creating these Hispanic dishes out of their mobile kitchen early this year. "That's my passion," Molina said. Currently located outside the Chevron gas station next to the Florida Highway State Patrol office, The Cuban Guy Cafe & Grill (Now Havana Restaurant) serves about 50 to 100 customers daily, Molina said. The couple also owns the car wash wash at the gas station, but Molina said he has plans to expand their business very soon. Meanwhile, word is spreading. Molina remembers one customer who compared the Cuban food in Miami to his own cooking. He was proud to hear that she thought his food tasted better than that of a traditional restaurant opened in Miami's Little Havana in 1971. "We ate at the famous Versailles restaurant there, and the food here is 100 times better than that. We ordered the Roasted Pork Plate special and beef empanadas. The pork was cooked perfectly crispy on the outside, rice and black beans were on point, and the empanadas were awesome," the review from Divina Blanco reads. She gave five stars for her review.