Jose Torres

12 minutes ago, Jose Torres said:

 

Lived there from 1975 -80, I was 10 years old when we left back to Miami. My mother Josefa was the one cooking in the kitchen during that time. We lived upstairs. Hector Cardet and his family lived above the Market on the corner. Chances are that I was running around the front of the restaurant during that time. 

Attached are photos when my brother visited some years ago I think in 2007 and him with my father in front of Cardet's Cafe in the 70's.

On 7/24/2014 at 0:51 AM, Libbie said:

 

I started eating at Cardet's in the late 1970s. The food was good, and the restaurant was attached to a little grocery store--Cuban, of course, like the restaurant--that sold normal groceries and also a few exotic vegtables, like malangas (google it), as well as Cuban records and even books.  I'm pretty sure the Cardet family originally lived above the store; in later years it appeared that the cook and her family lived there.

I would see Cubans and people who seemed to be from the West Indies shopping there. After the 1980 Mariel Boatlift catapulted a lot of destitute Cubans into the country, I noticed several new employees. The food, if possible, got even better. Then, in 1983, it was sold to some Koreans,who re-named it Latina Cafe (this name jarred a bit if you knew Spanish and caught the incorrect grammatical gender of Latina + Cafe). But they kept the same cook and wait staff. I remember seeing a diminutive oldish Cuban waiter upbraiding his Korean lady boss in Desi-Arnaz-rapid-fire Spanish (the time I remember it was something about that customer didn't want his milk-coffe pre-sweetened). The new Korean owners soon learned enough Spanish for self-preservation, and I remember seeing their pre-school daughter sitting at the counter, the pet of elderly Cubans doting on her. The Koreans tried a Korean dish or two but eventually reverted to all-Cuban food. I didn't go for several years. When I went back, the daughter was old enough to take my order! A few years later, I heard it had been sold to some Indonesians, who, fortunately, kept the menu and the cook. Not all that many years ago, it ceased to be Cuban/Korean/Indonesian/Cuban, and became The Roost. I ate there once. The food is quite good, but the place was too noisy for quiet conversation, at dinner time, anyway.

Lived there from 1975 -80, I was 10 years old when we left back to Miami. My mother Josefa was one cooking in the kitchen during that time. We lived upstairs. Hector Cardet and his family lived above the Market on the corner. Chances are that I was running around the front of the restaurant during that time.