Cuba Bakery & Deli — Restaurant in Cuba

Visiting Cuba for the first time on a day trip, my husband and I were very excited to see there was a "deli" in the area with great reviews. The people who had stopped by to eat, were thrilled by the sandwiches, bread and jam selection as well as the cheap sandwiches.

Since moving to Missouri, I have visited at least 10 Mennonite delis and this one is just average. I think the folks that are raving about this joint have never tried any of the other Mennonite delis around.

The Mennonites have cornered the market on serving simple but hearty deli sandwiches, fresh and delicious baked goods, tons of spices and everything a HUGE Mennonite family needs to survive.

The females are the ones that run the stores and work indoors and the men work in the fields. The woman tend to dress like Laura Ingalls, complete with bonnets but the men get to wear jeans and semi regular clothes.

THE BEST Mennonite store, bakery and plants is Shirks Market outside of Jeff City. But my review on them later..... :-)

Like any small town, this deli had a competent server but not very friendly,. She seem to know the welcome the regulars, we were just treated like drive by tourists.

There is a lovely dining room but everything is self serve. When you're ready to order your sandwich, go to the counter, grab a sandwich order sheet and check off what you want. Then hit the bell if no one is around...they do take credit cards which is awesome!

There is also a comfy little patio, out front, so you can sit outside and...

I had an amazing sandwich Friday at Cuba Bakery and Deli. I don’t normally eat processed meats, and especially not bologna (I was grossed out as a kid by my brother frying it and eating it with ketchup!), but I was very intrigued by the phrase “Sweet Lebanon“ on the list of meats that I could choose from for my sandwich. I figured, why not, I’ve never seen this meat before, and who knows if I ever would again.

Sweet Lebanon is bologna that is smoked and, yes, is sweet, just a bit. Just imagine if honey ham and salami had an all-beef baby!

This was very thinly sliced on my sandwich, and I added smoked cheddar and jalapeño mustard to go with it on my honey-oat bread - totally delicious!

I also picked up a loaf of excellent jalapeño cheddar bread and some big soft chewy molasses cookies with icing. They had many other cookie choices there, along with other breads and cinnamon rolls, and I imagine they were all wonderful. They also had lots of gluten-free goodies.

Best of all, it’s all made with natural and “real“ ingredients! My favorite way to go!

When you go in to order a sandwich, they give you a sheet of paper with all of your choices for breads, meats, cheeses and condiments. My sandwich was ready in less than five minutes even though it was lunchtime.

Prices were very reasonable, so check them out if you are...

We stopped here for lunch which was handy and just off the highway.

It is self service. You can’t just come in the door and order. You have to make a treck, around through the food items for sale, which they said was designed that way, and then complete a paper order form for each person and place it in the right area depending on what you are ordering. The tables are in another area. Food is brought to this area but you then bus your own tables. If you have any mobility issues, this is a tedious process.

Between us we ordered two large bowls of white chili, a salad and a half sandwich.

The 16 oz salad was bigger than I thought it would be. It was full of the vegetables that I ordered. The lettuce and vegetables were fresh and the vinaigrette was mustardy and not sweet. Very good.

The sandwich had fresh bread and the turkey was fresh. Also very good.

The white chili was different than what I am used to. It was mostly a thin cheese soup. It had a few beans and a couple of shreds of chicken. Most white or chicken chilis I have had are chunkier and thicker.

We had a molasses cookie that was delicious.

The food came out pretty quickly so overall, a good stop on the highway with freshly...