Mojo Magic: Cafecito's Recipe for Loop Longevity

My definition of the Loop is on the small side. For this project, I’m limiting myself only to what I can find between the Chicago River on the north and west, Michigan Ave. to the east, and Ida B. Wells Drive (formerly Congress Parkway) to the south. (Sure, some definitions of the Loop include Lakeshore East and part of the South Loop, but I have to draw the lines somewhere.)

Fortunately, this means I’m able to, just barely, visit Cafecito’s original location on the north side of Ida B. Wells Drive.

In what seems like a stroke of good luck, Cafecito is connected to a youth hostel, making it an ideal spot to fill up on freshly made food for relatively affordable prices, especially for the Loop.

But a good location doesn’t totally explain how Cafecito, a small Cuban sandwich joint that opened in 2008, has managed to not only survive in the tough Loop market, but expand. It now has two Loop locations, along with ones in the Gold Coast and Lincoln Park, and, surprisingly, a couple in California.

That’s not bad for two Lebanese-American brothers, Philip and Michael Ghantous, who had never run a restaurant before.

Though it has six locations now, Cafecito definitely doesn’t feel like a corporate restaurant chain. Each one feels like a real neighborhood spot, which also means that food takes time. Not a long time — but a reasonable amount of time for someone to construct a sandwich, place it in a press, and wait until it’s properly toasted.

That helps to explain why Cafecito’s Cubano is nearly perfect.

A Cubano sounds simple. It’s a pressed sandwich with only six components — bread, ham, Swiss cheese, roast pork, pickle, and mustard. But the devil is in the details.

A proper Cubano requires a deft hand. Get skimpy with the fillings, and each bite becomes overly bready and dry. Go the opposite route, and cram in too much meat, and the sandwich doesn’t compress correctly, inevitably falling apart into a hot mess. What you want is for all the components to gel into a perfect new whole.

At Cafecito, the bread is thin yet still able to withstand toasting without drying out completely. The ham is salty, the Swiss cheese creamy, the pickle tart and crunchy, and the mustard is pungent and acidic. But the real star is the mojo-marinated roast pork. It’s deeply savory, yet also aromatic, with citrus hovering around every bite.

If you’re not feeling like a sandwich, try the platillo of ropa vieja. Tender shredded beef comes with a huge scoop of white rice and creamy black beans. This is hearty, filling stuff, exactly what you’d need if you were, say, staying in a hostel and needed a huge meal to fuel you to traverse the city on the cheap. Or, you know, if you’re just a normal Loop worker bee who needs some sustenance before sitting through yet another meeting.

Cafecito’s menu sprawls from there. You can find a solid bowl of caldo gallego soup, along with salads, empanadas, and sides like jalapeño hummus. That’s not even counting the breakfast menu of sandwiches and omelets.

I definitely haven’t been able to try everything, but everything I have tasted clearly explains why this Cuban-inspired joint has managed to stick around for almost two decades.

Cafecito
26 E. Ida B. Wells Drive (Congress Pkwy), Chicago, IL 60605
https://iheartcafecito.com