Villa Pinar Cuban Cafeteria — Restaurant in Florida

New to this area of the State and always looking for good Cuban food. I came across this cafeteria and dropped in to check it out 9am on a Sunday morning.

My first impression when I walked in was authentic. There is Cuban themed artwork all over the place, most of it oil paintings. The dining room is large, and everything is clean and organized. There is a large wall mounted menu with traditional items dominating the line up, and they also have cooked food in a “cantina” style that you can order from as well. They had whole fried fish, rice and several other items. Everything looked amazing. I was out riding my motorcycle so I was unable to take food to go, but I sure would have if I had been in a car.

I ordered cafe con leche and two pastelitos. It was fabulous. I would have liked the pastelito dough cooked a little more but the guava filling was on point. Everything seems genuine and authentic.

The only thing lacking was a friendly and family feel to the experience. The one employee I interacted seemed guarded and withdrawn, but that may have been her personality. When I engaged her, she responded in a friendly way. The people eating at the two other tables were similarly guarded and never made contact or replied to my greeting of Buenos Días!, even though they were speaking Spanish amongst themselves and clearly understood me. This may have been an isolated, unusual situation, because everything else feels so right. I will...

For the most part this was a diamond in the rough. I was looking for ropa Vieja and found this little gem. Definitely authentic cooking. Right down to the boiled yuca and mojo. One thing they can improve on is the waitress knowing about what they do and don’t have. Or being able to suggest their favorite dish. Also, the drinks are in a can- not in a glass. The dinning area has some really nice looking tables. you can order off the Menu or buy food from their lunch bar. which is basically the same thing. So if you have an issue with your food not being freshly made. Take that into consideration. They pull their meals from the lunch bar that people come in to make plates to eat at home. The portion sizes are good and you can choose from brown rice, white rice, or yellow rice. They have several different Cuba desserts available. You can also choose from red beans or black beans. I personally didn’t like the yellow rice. The ropa was good and so was the yucca. The food wasn’t hot. And Our meals didn’t come out together. one other thing I notice. I am Spanish - I don’t speak Spanish. I asked a few questions and the waitress seem disconnected . But when a Spanish speaking customer came in. The waitress was much friendly with them. I’m extremely fair in my reviews. But I do take it personally when I’m treated differently then those who have...

Food was EXCELLENT! If I could rate it just based on that I would give 5 stars. The service was awful. We had 3 adults , 2 children. It was not terribly busy, 3 other tables besides ours. We each got our meals 10 min apart, we didnt get our drinks until after the first meal was delivered. And the waitress had to ask us twice what we had (instead of just looking at her little notepad, and they were just waters). I only got part of my meal, and only got the rest of it because my husband had to go to the front to ask for it. A tall gentleman visited every table except ours, just walked right past us. I'm assuming the manager/owner/someone important. We asked for several boxes because we had a lot leftover (the portions are huge) and the waitress acted like containers were scares said "you can add those two together, its ok". She never came back to deliver the check after that so we got up and went to the cashier whom had to call her over and they spoke in their language (both ladies spoke english well). Overall, the food was amazing but IF we ever come back we will get our orders to go and find a nice park to enjoy it, since the service was...