TAMPA, Fla. (WFTS) — In Seminole Heights, Soul de Cuba Café serves more than Cuban sandwiches and traditional ropa vieja. The walls themselves tell a story of family, community, and a cultural legacy that stretches back more than a century.
Framed photographs of Jesus Puerto’s great-grandparents and a historic image of the Martí-Maceo Society, an Afro-Cuban mutual aid club founded in 1900, adorn the café, providing diners with a visual journey through the past.
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“My great-grandfather, Santiago Gonzalez, was a maestro panadero, a Cuban bread baker,” said owner Jesús Puerto, gesturing toward a photograph of his ancestor. “At one point, he even worked with La Segunda Central Bakery for almost four decades. But I think he probably had learned that skill in his teens.”
Photos of other family members, including Puerto’s uncle Louie in a top hat as a youngster and later as an elder, also line the walls.
“That’s me that is in his arms, and that’s at our home in Ybor City in the late 60s, maybe 1969, and that’s my abuela and my aunt Consuelo and my sister Luisa,” Puerto said. “We have been here for so many generations.”
Puerto explained the importance of preserving the history of his ancestors and their community in that context.
“Even with the distance and time, when we go to visit family in Cuba, it awakens memories of a time we had with our elders here, who have now since passed away.”
The café’s walls tell not just the story of Puerto’s family, but also the broader Afro-Cuban contribution to Tampa. Photographs and memorabilia connect modern diners to a community that thrived despite segregation and social exclusion.
“We have these 150-year-old recipes that we have, but also our sense of hospitality that was passed down by our great grandparents,” Puerto said. “They came over from Guanabacoa, Cuba in the 1890s. My great-grandfather, Santiago Gonzalez, and my great-grandmother, Beatrice, from Bayamo, met in Ybor City in the mid-1890s, went back to Cuba, got married, and then came back. There was a lot of back and forth going on in that time period.”
In addition to preserving history on the walls, Puerto uses traditional Afro-Cuban dishes as a form of cultural storytelling. Recipes like ropa vieja, fricasse de pollo, and black beans with rice are central to the café’s menu.
“The recipes are part of the preservation of culture, of our heritage,” Puerto said. “We are not here to educate or change, but to carry that information forward for our future generations.”
Puerto also highlights local Tampa dishes with deep cultural roots, such as crab shala, a blend of Italian, Cuban, and American culinary influences. Each dish tells a story of Tampa’s diverse immigrant communities coming together, much like the cigar factories of old.
Puerto’s family is tightly connected to the Martí-Maceo Society, which was formed after Afro Cubans were excluded from the Cuban Club due to Jim Crow segregation laws.
“The first 65 years they were at the original location,” Puerto said, “and then since then, on Seventh Avenue. The first building was demolished in 1965 so that Nuccio Parkway could go there. Since then, the society has moved to 1226 East Seventh Avenue in Ybor City.”
The society became a hub for Afro-Cuban life in Tampa, providing a place for cultural gatherings, social events, and mutual aid. A large photo covering most of one the restaurant wall's depicts a 1944 event at the social club.
“The Harvest Moon ball was an event where a band came down from Harlem and performed for African Americans, many of them military, and also local people. It was a great gathering place and connection point for the African American community, the Cuban community, especially the black Cuban community, and a point where many major names of the time played there. It was actually on the Chitlin Circuit.”
Rodney Kite-Powell, curator at the Tampa Bay History Center, emphasized the broader historical significance of Afro Cubans in Ybor City.
“Afro Cubans often are left out of the conversation when we talk about Ybor City,” he said. “But they contributed a lot to the growth here. In cigar factories, you’d see a Black man sitting next to a white woman rolling cigars. They were Cuban, and within Ybor, there was a greater sense of equality than you would find elsewhere in the South.”
That equality was, however, largely contained within Ybor City’s insular Cuban community. Once Afro Cubans stepped outside their neighborhood, the realities of Jim Crow laws were inescapable.
Yet, the horrors of Jim Crow laws eventually found their way into Ybor City.
"The kind of white Cuban population was both pressured by the overall Anglo community, but also wanting to maybe become a little more of a part of that community. The Afro Cubans were removed or kicked out of the Cuban club, and the new Cuban club is established as the Circle of Cubano and this club, Marti-Maceo, was established for Afro Cubans," Kite-Powell explained.
Even as Tampa changes, the history of the Afro-Cuban community is being preserved in new ways. Kite-Powell noted that new development within the Gas Works project allows the legacy to remain visible.
“The original club building for the Martí-Maceo Club was torn down during urban renewal in the 1960s. Now that land that it was on, and really the overall larger Afro-Cuban neighborhood that was there, is being redeveloped,” Puerto said. “A lot of the new buildings in those developments are using the names from our historic past. One of them is La Union, named for the Martí-Maceo building.”
During Hispanic Heritage Month, the café is hosting a special event to connect history with the present. Puerto’s upcoming event, Sabor de la Paz, will feature a tasting menu alongside the history of Afro-Cuban families in Tampa.
The photographs, memorabilia, and recipes at Soul de Cuba Café serve as a living record of a community that shaped Tampa’s identity. Through his café, Puerto is preserving a legacy that spans generations, connecting the past to the present one meal, one story, and one photograph at a time.
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