After more than a year with its doors shut, Havana Harry’s reopens today, Monday, October 19, at its longtime home at 4612 South LeJeune Road in Coral Gables. The Cuban comfort-food staple, a neighborhood fixture since 1995, spent the past year working through building-code repairs before owner Centurion Restaurant Group was ready to welcome families back.
The restaurant’s extended closure followed a stretch of setbacks, including a temporary state health closure and a longer city-ordered shutdown tied to permitting and electrical work in the building. For regulars used to stopping in for arroz con pollo or a plate of chicken vaca frita, the silence on South LeJeune Road was hard to miss, and the restaurant’s owners say they heard about it constantly.
“Families have been asking us every week when they can return, and now we are finally ready for them,” said Carlos Centurion, founder of Centurion Restaurant Group, which also runs Bulla Gastrobar, Pisco y Nazca, and Beehive Kitchen. Centurion took over Havana Harry’s in 2022 and says the goal through the renovation was continuity, not reinvention: “Our responsibility was never to reinvent Havana Harry’s.”
The dining room has a new look, with green leather booths, mosaic tile, and Cuban-inspired art replacing the old decor, but the menu that built the restaurant’s following over three decades stays intact: tostones, croquetas, Cuban sandwiches, Ropa Vieja, and the signature Chicken Vaca Frita, along with flan, tres leches, and the restaurant’s well-known milkshakes. Lunch and dinner service begin first, with breakfast returning December 1.
To mark the reopening, the first 50 guests through the door today receive a $20 gift card for a future visit, and anyone spending $10 or more between October 19 and 26 gets a free mojito, Cuban-style tamal, dulce de leche flan, or café Cubano. It’s a modest welcome-back gesture for a restaurant that, in a neighborhood full of newer openings, is mostly just trying to pick up where it left off.
Reopenings like this are a reminder of how much weight small, independent restaurants carry in a neighborhood’s identity. Are you a local entrepreneur? List your business on Miami Business Web today.
Source: WhatNow Miami