Another of our famous Mallstars, Tony is owner of the hippest coffee joint on the downtown mall, Cafe Cubano. I don’t know anyone else in town that takes more pride in drawing a shot of espresso than Tony…be sure to ask for a cortadito (typical Cuban coffee: lots of sugar, espresso and a drop of milk…it will knock you on your caffeinated feet), and you will see the attention he gives to the tiny succulent shot. So I thought it would be great to find out more about the man behind the coffee…so here goes!
Starting a life and business in Charlottesville
Where were you before Charlottesville?
I was in Miami in the restaurant business, but when my wife was diagnosed with a serious illness we moved to Alexandria. There I partnered with a restaurant guy in the DC to manage a couple locations and we later sold the business to a South Korean group in 1992. That gave me the chance to move to cville. I started working in Richmond for about a year consulting for a restaurant group and later worked for UVa with a management consulting group.
Why did you come to Charlottesville?
My first wife, who passed away, had a sister that lived here. For twenty years we traveled to cville about 2-3 times per year. I was always impressed by the environment.
How did Cafe Cubano come about?
I had an opportunity to meet the brothers from Higher Ground Coffee. I loved their food and coffee and decided to buy it. My goal was to deliver a micro-concept on the downtown mall. I loved the diversity and “city” feeling of the mall. The customer base came from all walks of life. From movers and shakers to UVa professors and students to nerds to entrepreneurs…it reminded me a lot of old-town Alexandria.
Enjoying the country’s best “small town”
What is your favorite aspect of cville?
I take every opportunity I can to hike and camp in the valley and foot of of the Blue Ridge mountains. I love the four seasons. I grew up in Boston and was very fond of the snow. Living in Miami for so long you miss the changing weather. Cville gave me the chance to show my son how beautiful the seasons are. Cville is a terrific city because if you miss the feeling of the Washington DC or New York City, you can hop in the car and be there in a couple hours.
What is your favorite restaurant in Charlottesville?
That is a really hard question to answer because cville has so many great restaurants. Andrew does a great job at Zo.Ca.Lo. Brian delivers a great concept at Petit Pois. If I am in the mood for steak, no question its the Downtown Grill. That is the closest you can get to a big city steak house. For calamari, I love Bang! and Bluelight.
For all around dining its definitely a tie between Zo.Ca.Lo, Hamiltons and Petit Pois. If I am in the mood for Sushi its definitely Miyako…all sushi all the time. For a fun restaurant I love Mas. That is the best fun place in all of cville. Tomas does a great job over there. The people, food and eating at the bar is amazing. Everybody shares like a large Italian family…a genuinely good time.
What is cville’s best kept secret?
Cville is like an open book. Because it is so diverse and the people are so well educated there are no hidden treasures other than its natural beauty. The natural beauty here is akin to Connecticut and Vermont. The small rural hidden trails where you can cycle with someone you want to spend time with are exceptional.
Business life in cville and the effects of the current economy
I thinks everyone is feeling the impact, no question about that. Everyone is cost conscious. I am very price conscious for my coffee prices considering we use fair trade/organic etc…I talk to my customers all the time. I notice customers that used to come in daily are only coming in three times per week. Some people are getting less hours of work, architects have less buildings to design. A lot of people in the finance community say that there is no one selling/buying in the market right now. Cville still holds itself very well despite the economic conditions. This has been a wake up call for the mortgage lending industry. People are becoming more responsible with their finances. Commercial brokers seem to be doing a lot better. Every time you turn the corner there is a new restaurant or retail space. Per sq ft. cville appears to be more competitive on the restaurant scene than more established cities like DC, Richmond, etc…
Who is the most influential person to you in cville?
My wife is my hero in terms of support. She is a bright and wonderful woman. Other than that, Joe and Will from Higher Ground. They are always receptive to my needs. Christian from Christian’s Pizza is a terrific operator and is always there for him.
Favorite book
Currently reading a John Grisham novel, but Ernest Hemingway ’s Old Man and The Sea is my all time favorite. I can relate to the protagonist, an eccentric individual like the man Dominic whom I did business with for a long time in Miami. Ernest Hemingway is like Dominic, an individual who swims against the current. The type of person who will wake up in the morning at 730AM, pour himself a glass of cognac and get going. He passed away a while back. In the 80’s in Miami, if you slept two hours you slept too long.
Cooking at home and the local food scene
I love to grill. My specialty is baby back ribs. I put a stock together with bay leaves, carrots, tomatoes, black and Cajun pepper, onions, then boil that for 2 days. I use that to slow grill the ribs for 2 hours. Seafood is another passion. Grilled swordfish with a homemade green peppercorn sauce, wow! Grilled shrimp with chunky tomato sauces, grilled red bliss garlic potatoes and asparagus.
I used to go to Foods of All Nations and now I usually buy at Whole Foods. They have grass-fed beef which I think has a better texture than the corn-fed variety. I love the Farmer’s Market next to Mono Loco…if they have beef for sale its a definite buy. I am very big into local products for the food and follow the local movement. There are a lot of local products in cville for restaurants.
I support the goat cheese guy a lot. My wife loves his cheese. We have been eating it for years and never had a problem. There is nothing like a nice tomato and basil from a farmers market. If I were to have a restaurant I would have a green house. The Inn at Little Washington has been into the local food scene for years long before the concept came up into the public eye. When I lived in NOVA I had my own garden and used to stomp my own grapes. Unfortunately I don’t have time for a garden now. I buy all my herbs and veggies from the farmers market. Its quite a feeling to bite into a tomato and really know it’s a tomato. When you bite into a strawberry your mouth puckers up, the sugars hit your tongue. People who know about food will buy on a local level.
Related posts:
- New Cafe from Orzo Folks to be Named “Calvino Cafe”
- Cville Coffee: A Honey Influenced Love Affair
- Interview with the Villains of Charlottesville’s Real Estate Bubble Blog
Cafe Cubano is one of the best places to hide out and get some work done on their WiFi.
Not sure in what sense sitting dead-ass in the middle of the Mall gawking at passers-by and besporting onesself in the most flamboyant snobbish look-me-ist manner conceivable could be classified as “hiding out’… With the possible exception of Natalie, that place seems predominantly patronized by the most vulgarly self-referential and self-adoring ‘We In Set’ clique of pseudo-intellects and preening phony-sophisticates imagineable. It seems if aspiring to eitrher social or intellectual recogniztion and prominence, one m,ight try to be seen in something less of a FOOD COURT and seek out attainment and substance rather than just the lastest pre-distressed jeans and donna-karan knockoff ‘little-black-dresses’ and tribal tattoos (which themselves are obscene and ridiculous on shopkeepers daughters with degrees in mass-communications).
I quite like the OWNER of Cubano, and quite like the BUSINESS of Cubano, but somehow, even since its inception several names ago, it has always drawn the absolute WORST of the scenesters from our twenty-something, thirty-something glitteratti. Christ, what a Rogue’s Gallery of non-entities pretending to be EXALTED OTHER. Again, with the exception of Natalie. And to lean on the railing of it, to be on the outside looking in, awaiting an invitation to join in the pretense, is one of the most artificially exclusionary WHITES ONLY survivals of no time that ever existed here—where there actually WAS a CLERISY, an intellectual jet-set that had some meaning or say or place in the upper atmospheres of local culture. Who the hell would make it so, other than self-praising and self-referentially? Maybe if BEn Affleck and Angelina and Stephen Hawking and Chuck Closterman and Tony Blair moved here, we could pretend that it was a Cafe Dome or whatever, but as it stands, the patrons ruin the business by their dim-bulb incomprehending of what a coffeehouse IS, traditionally and contemporarily.
And as an aside—why IS there no actual coffeehouse in this town—no converted warehouse with sky-high exposed steel beams’ ceiling, with concrete floors to spill upon, that allows smoking, that HAS hidden corners and thrift-shop couches and ratty leather armchairs, that HAS a bulletin board to leave notes for pals, that has a place to leave packages or books for pals, that IS big enough so if music is playing you don’t have to listen to lousy pseudo-neo-jazz guitar noodlings if you aren’t braindead, that stays open beyond eight o’clock at night. Coffeehouses should serve as living rooms for overeducated and underpaid bohemians who live in sh*tty squats or have gaggles of roommates—and NEED a place to go at night and to stay-stay-stay comfortably so they don’t have to wallow in the squalor of their dwellings while they write, pitch woo, doze away the depression or boredom, etc. Since every bar has turned into a capshw glemaing f*ck-fest, and every coffee-place is a bauhaus clean-steel prophylactic-hygienic-sterile new york bagelery and not a human environment, where the hell ARE we to go, we happy few, who would give you SUBSTANCE to justify your pretense-in-appearance of being arteeeestes?
and so on.
god i hate monday.
Very nice review of a very nice place, though, and a very nice fellow, the owner—certainly a character we’re grateful would give his time and face to such a business.
death to pirates
otterdung
holy smokes! Is that much enthusiasm possible on a Monday? Emphatic YES
Hey otterdung, wanna go grab a coffee?
/oh, wait.
to # 4
no joke, in just a few quick replies from her/him,
Belmont Yo has struck me as the best thing about this website.
why IS there no actual coffeehouse in this town—no converted warehouse with sky-high exposed steel beams’ ceiling
The back room of Café Cubano is at least sort of close to this. No smoking, but it’s quiet, cool, and tucked away.
/no I’m just kidding, there’s no back room, don’t spoil it for everyone else.
@2. Otterdung, if I were to review comments with substantial evidence of intelligence, this would be one of the most innovative in terms of creativity and brevity of language.
Dude, welcome to c’villes gossip center!!!
Yes, but what’s his favorite color?
@2
Is it OK if I just like the 90?
Espresso Corner used to be “a real coffee shop” back when I first moved here (‘01 ish). Then it turned into Orbit. Now it will be Happy Fun Time Burger or some such nonsense. Because its really hard to find a hamburger.
We need a coffee house named “Cauldron of the Dispossessed”, that would offer a 25 cent discount if you ordered in haiku.
black coffee with room
for cream and my lonesome tears
and one angst croissant
to # 7
i’m not clever enough to know if you’re pulling my leg. but thank you for the welcome–i like this site very much, and hope i am not spoiling things.
to # 9
it WAS nice when we had Espresso Corner and Kafkafe, the one a bit upscale with fireplace (now Buddha Biker) and the other down-homey and hang-about. EC used to stay open 24 hours during exam-period, too, if i recollect aright.
have a meeting–i’ll get back to you with a sonnet.
fat russian novel
and a chai latte for here
props to get me laid
i would order a mocha,
but t’would betray my poet’s
soul. plain coffee please
my hot goth girlfriend
doesn’t mind if I eat bagels
just not garlic ones
americano.
espresso esperanto
meaning diluted.
This coffee? Bourgeois!
How dare you charge such prices?
Can you break a hun?
natalie rocks. but they kicked him out and got replaced with child molester dude.
/can’t go back now
Now it will be Happy Fun Time Burger or some such nonsense
I heard over the weekend that the Spot (or whatever they’re calling it) will have a music venue upstairs. Did we discuss this? Is this true? Could save the Corner music scene from the CVS death knells.
I also heard that the original plan was to build out the venue while keeping the downstairs as “Orbit”, then opening the venue while re-purposing Orbit as a burger joint, but then an ABC violation put the kibosh on those plans, so now they’ll open everything all at once. Any confirmation of this gossip? I’m just curious, really.
Cafe Cubano
Heed the words of belmont yo
25 cent discount now!
Cafe Bustello
Found at the supermarket
Good coffee for less
skim latte please.
my own coffee is better
but I like it here
I still like Mudhouse better.
I prefer iced-coffee, and the best I’ve had yet has been at Splendora’s. BUT — I still find myself at Cafe Cubano more than anywhere else becuase I’m a vulgarly self-referential and self-adoring ‘I In Set’ person of pseudo-intellect and am a preening phony-sophisticate. Oh, and they have the best cuban sandwich in town.
otterdung….well-hung!
/do we sense an impending otterhung/byo poetry slam? sonnets/hiaku/limericks at two-minute intervals?
to #25–
i defer utterly to Belmont Yo’s excellences. i’m no poet and my meeting was a pisser, sorry, killed my mood (which as you may have surmised from my earlier post was already a sunshiney one).
to #24–
not that being one of those is BAD or anything… it takes all kinds.
Just spend a few extra minutes on the Soloflex and you’ll feel better.
do they have the only cuban sandwich in town? i’ll try Splendora.
I’m picturing dijonbray on a Soloflex in his cutoff denim shorts and giggling.
@27: Are you giggling or is he giggling?
Limericks are at that other coffee shop…
With coffee I am quite gourmandy
and order in tongues cross the pondy
with frills and whipped cream
and syrup and dreams
and a gratuitous accent on grandé
My coffee, why I like it plenty
as I am of the cognostiscenti
I could write these all night
Cause Im wired up tight
I’ll have another, best make it a venti
At all hours the coffee doth call
thus doth I head out to the mall
but jesus these jitters
have my heart a twitter
I guess I’ll just order a tall.
@28: Both
229: Whoa
Sometimes I call me a bud up,
And go with him to order a Mud Cup.
but as far as this goes
my rhymes pale next to yo’s.
So someone should tell me to shut up.
I prefer to spend my cheddar
at mudhouse cuz it’s better
so you can take cubano
and cover it in guano
i’ll send your mom a letter
i’ll send your mom a letter
That. Is. So. Not. Funny. What if it was your best friend’s coffee shop? What if there were kittens in it?
/umbrage!
31: shut up! although those rhymes are perhaps a step above your rollie pollie lines on the “Enntymoligic Projekt”.
and shen, I have been to ACAC twice whilst wearing cut-off denim shorts, and yes, there were giggles.
This is starting to get a little clique-ish. Who’s going to explain to the rookie lurkers what you’re talking about?
@ 35 True. Noobs:
i’ll send your mom a letter
A joke that went over poorly (about writing letter’s to criminal’s moms) back when there was much cap popping on 64. There was weeping, wailing and gnashing of ascii. In deference to the offended, I agreed not to make jokes in that vein anymore, although it seems that moratorium is ended (yay! its ON!). May also be coupled with various links to criminal’s myspace pages, and a general piss taking of their online existence. Also, one must remember to over use the term “alleged” in any discourse of local crime, lest the umbrage of the righteous or connected descend upon you like hellish rain.
Kittens? Well they are basically an ethical delimiter for certain posters. Polar bears? Not so much.
@33: I wrote that for you especially.
@36: On behalf of all of the lurkers, thank you.
I ask myself, “Where, on the Downtown Mall, would Jesus, Socrates, Shakespeare and Lilith (sigh) choose to meet for coffee?”
And then I go there.
@35
I bet there’s an amusing story behind the “vat of smugness” too.
Walking to Espresso
cubano gets a b
mudhouse rates a tad lower
italian rubistico blends at splen & milano are fine
shen jo caps the lot
but fuk the damned traffic.
Scenesters
if you recognize any or all
you are by def a piece of shit
the “hide-out” is in the back room
you insufferable tool
anywhere else just shut up & drink.
Looking for the All-day Cup
while iced is best at Splen
and cheapest too,
for the hottest all day cup
i cannot tell you
bur it’s right in this fukking article you twad.
Are the links in the original article/post purposefully pointing to odd things or are they pointing to incorrect things? Both the “Mallstars” and “Cafe Cubano” links point to the recent “I’ve decided to join the internet” post while the “Higher Ground” link points to an article having nothing to do with Higher Grounds.
It occurred to me that that might be on purpose, though, and I didn’t get it.
You may have also run into some of my friends from time to time here on The Mall. Do you know anyone else who might get along with one of y’all? (From “I’ve decided to join the internet.”)
Tony is one of those guys Chris. He’s a pretty cool dude and I think Francesco did a great job covering him as a Mallstar.
/As for the second one, I too felt a little woozy, but like the story on Cubano.
@42 I did indeed use the same hyperlink for both…my mistake…just corrected so the Cubano link points to our coffee roundup. The links do have some relevancy….the term mallstars which I thought I had coined myself a couple weeks ago was used in the “I’ve decided to join the internet” post, and the Higher Ground link points to an article that had that name in the title. That one had VERY little relevancy! Hope you enjoyed.
Mallstars was coined a while ago, n00b.
Always interestedly lurking, but rarely time to chat….. What about Shenandoah Joe’s on Preston…… high ceiling, concrete floor, thrift store furniture….. and the best locally roasted coffee?
Trager brothers is better than Shen Joes!
@46
if Shen Joe’s allowed smoking, and stayed open until two a.m. to beat out the others, and had some more expansive outdoor space with a table and chair or two, it’d be worth sitting in the middle of traffic. Nice to have the thrift-shoppe adjacent so you can pick up 20-30 copies of flowers-for-algernon to study while sucking-down those effeminate european coffees.
an aside, anyone notice that you can’t WRITE on paper at mudhouse tables outdoors because of the little holes? pain in arse. GB’s and Cubano got it right with real table-tops. and not one of these patios provides ashtrays (sorry to keep introducing the Marlboro-note, but dammit what idiot decided that alcohol or coffee and tobacco could be divided, or should be…)
@ 47
Where is Trager Brothers?
Cafe Cubano has the best chai in Cville. I will go out of my way to go there, especially when Stephanie is working. Tony is a great guy, runs a great place.
i am so impressionable: last night i dreamed, well, lots of crazy, “24″-type things, but the relevance is, at the end, in order to fix everything, belmont yo had to extemporaneously recite a sonnett. it was good. the world was saved.
@50
At night, when everyone sleeps
and there is no light from the dawn
it is i who did silently creep
out my door and onto my lawn
seems the world was under attack
by a poetry affectionando
and there was a a serious lack
in the heart of this desperado
for an extemporaneous sonnet
to be recited at night by well, me
dont know what put said bee in his bonnet
but I made with the rhyme just to see
twas a poem that the evil one craved
so i wrote one and mankind was saved
/yeah yeah, i know my iambic pentameter is all wonky, but cut me some slack, Im saving your ass.
we should build a commemorative statue of belmont yo.
@52: With women kneeling all around him
draped head to toe in towels.
beshouldered by scowly.
spinning disco with head head high, staring east.
A little toke at lunch again parles?
years from now, our childrens’ childrens’ children will say by turning his subject’s back on the west, the sculptor shunned manifest destiny and by spinning disco, it endorsed drugs and therefore we should turn the statue’s back to the east and make the disco ball a globe.
@48 Dearest Utter Dung…. why in the name of Mother Theresa’s fucking knickers would you want to be in a coffee house at 2am?…that is a time for drinking, carousing and trying to get laid. Are you an undercover Jehovah’s Witness trying to tempt us away from our boozy ways?
trying to tempt us away from our boozy ways?
You can take the oozy out of the Floozy, but you can’t take the boozy from the Floozy.
/um, yeah, I don’t know, just go with it.
Boozy Floozy™
mudhouse sources from a better roaster. lexington va i think. and mudhouse has the best baristas. it’s too bad all the really good ones are managers out the gas station coffee bars. tyler at pantops and ashley at forest lakes both know entirely too much about coffee and are more than happy to share their knowledge, and a smile, with you. downtown’s still iffy most of the time, too many new faces. i’m skeptical of the new ones, but there’s been some good ones lately.
i think they fired the really bad one who made a lot of people go over to cubano. that always made me cry.
it sucks how quality varies depending on who’s working.
they’re both good
@61: Is that where Ashley went? Nobody is as bubbly and friendly as she is at 8:00 in the morning. I miss her. The people who work at Mudhouse are always goofy and fun and I think that’s why I prefer it to the other coffeehouses.
I have to say – I love Cafe Cubano’s food, but their service is SO SLOW.
I honestly never know if it’s going to take 5 minutes or 30 minutes to get my drink/biscuit/sandwich – whatever I may have ordered. That’s the main reason I don’t go more often.
@64: Ditto. I used to go there for breakfast and you never knew when you were going to get your order. Sometimes they FORGOT about it.
Is this still front page news? I never read the article in the first place.
that’s the best thing about new media: always keeping it current.
now it’s even older.. to spite you all!..
@67: LE SNAP!
New media: Come for the towels, stay for the spite.
I hear you can get 2-liters of spite at Reids.