Laurent Cafe in Cuba

Ramon Menendez, who emigrated from Austria to Cuba, once opened a small shop selling drinks and food in the old city of Havana, but was forced to close after the success of the Cuban revolution. Ramon, who died in 1980, has been hoping that his offspring will reopen the store. Now that his grandson Miguel Menendez has finally fulfilled his grandfather's wish, Menendez's restaurant reopened in the old city of Havana in January.

With the gradual release of restrictions on the private economy, dozens of new private restaurants have opened in Havana since January this year.

In the old city of Havana, Menendez's Cuban coin restaurant offers specialties such as pork chops and lobster at half the price of a state-run restaurant. At the Pachagna fast food restaurant for the general public, the guava juice and hamburger set costs only $4 and is open until 4 a.m. The higher-end "Laurent Cafe" is in a superior location, with a glass of beer costing $30, equivalent to the average monthly wage of Cubans, which only foreigners can afford.

Jos é Figueroa, one of Laurent's partners, who had worked in an upscale state-owned restaurant for six years, co-opened the cafe this year.

Unlike state-owned restaurants, Laurent Cafe can set its own prices, adjust its menu and choose its own motivated waiters. Figueroa pays waiters and cooks high enough that they will never steal the best steak in the restaurant again.

These new restaurants are popular with wealthy Cubans and foreign tourists, who have long been fed up with the stereotyped meals and services managed by the government.

The Cuban government allowed private operation of restaurants in "special difficult times" in 1993, but soon imposed many restrictions.