 "Photo: Morgan Crutchfield/Echo staff photographer")
Old Havana Sandwich Shop is more than a neighborhood eatery. It's now a community fixture. Owners Roberto Copa Matos and Elizabeth Turnbull — a married couple — envisioned a cultural experience for patrons and employees. "How nice would it be to have a restaurant where we could combine gardening, farming, and bring in Cuban culture and Haitian culture?" Copa Matos said.
The philosophy of the restaurant is threefold. To share all elements of Cuban culture, to contribute to the community by offering a point of transition for employees, and to make great food with local, fresh ingredients.
Old Havana Sandwich Shop serves traditional Cuban sandwiches using organic products.
Tender, slow cooked pork on Cuban style rolls, mojo sauce on the side.
Black beans and rice with crispy oven-roasted plantains known as maduros. Cuban coffee drinks and sweets, as well as classic Cuban guava toast.
Located in the historic building that once housed the Durham Sun, sunlight illuminates the restaurant through arching, expansive windows. Original Cuban art adorns the walls. Cuban music echoes off the vaulted ceiling.
Turnbull was born in Haiti. She runs Turnbull Marketing Group in Durham, which specializes in marketing for non-profit organizations.
The two met while Copa Matos was working as an art vendor in Old Havana.
For Copa Matos, an expatriate Cuban and naturalized United States citizen, Old Havana Sandwich Shop is opportunity, joy, and cultural celebration layered between two halves of a cuban roll.
Raised in Cuba, Copa Matos studied biochemistry as a university student. His reasons for emigrating were many, but the inability to pursue graduate level education ranked high among them.
"I disagreed with the political situation in Cuba, and I didn't want to be part of it, because I disagreed with the situation I was denied the opportunity to go back to graduate school," said Copa Matos.
"I said, ‘Well, if I don't agree with this and I have a hard time finding a job, and I can find more opportunities for myself, than personally, I am going to move out of Cuba.' That is how I decided."
Copa Matos worked as a teacher in both Miami and Durham. Eventually he was hired as a lab technician at UNC-Chapel Hill. It seemed like the perfect scenario to Copa Matos, but he discovered a different passion after starting a garden.
"I started reading about gardening and how to do ecologically responsible gardening," said Copa Matos.
"I changed my mind. What I wanted to do was use all this knowledge given to me and become a farmer."
Copa Matos and Turnbull have acquired a small piece of land to grow and source their own organic products. Old Havana Sandwich Shop uses locally raised pork and rolls from Guglhupf bakery in Durham.
Along with their passion for fresh, organic cooking Copa Matos and Turnbull share a passion for art. The restaurant displays artwork from rural areas of Cuba.
"I love the arts and I wanted to help Cuban artists who are currently living in Cuba, but having a hard time selling their work, but I never knew how," Copa Matos said.
By weaving Cuban elements into the Durham community the restaurant displays the richness of cultural exchange, and represents a triumph over the limitations of communism.
"Both my grandmothers were great cooks. Both owned bakeries before communism, but the government took over all private enterprises," Copa Matos said, "We are blessed to be in the states."
Old Havana Sandwich Shop is located at 310 E. Main Street in downtown Durham.
They are open Tues. through Fri. 8-4 p.m., Sat. 9-4 p.m., and Fri. and Sat. 6-9 p.m. For more info go to oldhavanaeats.com.
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