Sandy's Not Sandy's

Cuban coffee just got complicated in Key West on White Street. So I stopped by when I saw the old Sandy's Cafe was open once again.

The Facebook page didn't lie apparently and Sandy's did move up the street one block south from the famous laundry location. The place has the same red and white awning and is now open for business.

So imagine the surprise when the old location, buttoned up for a day or two suddenly sprouted activity and coffee and everything. What....?  So when I came by and asked how come the confusion the guy at the counter said no confusion the Mexicans are down the street and this place is all Cuban, 5 am to 11 pm.  Okay then.

Indeed the fact that Key West's most well known cuban coffee location was run by Mexicans was always a source of amusement to me. I wasn't particularly fond of their few Mexican dishes and I stuck with basic Cuban sandwiches. Now those Mexican plates are gone on the new temporary menu:

I suppose I shall have to wander down to the "other Sandy's" or perhaps the original Sandy's or even the Mexican Sandy's and see how that place measures up with it's seating and everything. In fact while I was waiting a  woman came by to pick up her "to go order" and wasn't she confused when they didn't have it and they directed her down the street to the other Sandy's...I don' think this situation is tenable especially as the other lot has a second store on Fleming Street plus a brand new Food Truck driving around.

My cheese bread was quite good with lots of molten cheese and properly pressed bread (not crisped) while the coffee was not bitter like it used to be so my spontaneous lunch was better than I expected.  On that brief experiment the old old Sandy's gets a thumbs up.

Somewhere in this mess there is a messed up business contract or agreement or something but I can't  see how Key West can go on for very long without all these Sandy's ending up in front of the law which will have to decide who is called what. Until then I aim to enjoy the absurdity of the confusion.

Cuban Coffee Queen

There is a new coffee shop in Key West, the 927th variation on well-worn theme; it so happens I rather like it. Location is the guarantor of success we are told by people who study good business practices, and the Cuban Coffee Queen is in a good location, between Waterfront Market and Turtle Kraals, in just the right, almost-waterfront place, to serve boaters and strollers of whom there are lots in this area.There is a little known illness in Key West that tends to afflict people after only a little while in town; travel becomes a chore. Imagine this: Fausto's grocery store has two outlets, one serving Old Town a block off Duval and another a whole mile away on White Street serving the rest of the metropolis. If they closed the White Street location no-one from New Town would bother to scoot five extra minutes to the Old Town location. People who live near Duval routinely decline to go to New Town based on it's distance (the whole island remember is four miles/six kilometers long...) and Stock Island (Mile Marker 5) is in the outer darkness of Deep Space. Thus it is that having a coffee shop and an inconvenience store (those little places with inconveniently high prices) every three blocks is a source of relief for travel-impaired Key Westers.
The Cuban Coffee Queen is more of a concept than a person as far as I can tell. He (clearly not a queen, quite masculine actually) made my coffee quickly and efficiently, while the woman is Hungarian(as I once overheard her telling a patron), which was no impediment to her pulling together a vast and delicious sandwich for me with equal attention to detail. They don't just make coffee either:
And for people confused by buchis (Cuban espresso shots), coladas (several buchis in a large cup to share in thimble sized cups usually) and con leches (liquid candy bars with lots of hot milk, drenching a buchi with sugar to taste) there is a handy, weatherproof explanation of the Cuban Coffee Queen's version: Not content with a sandwich list as long as your arm there is also the all-American blackboard:(I should have tried the mac and cheese now I think about it), and the other all-American invention is the voluntary tax deduction. The top dollar was the one I put in. If you can't afford the tip you can't afford the meal is a good rule to live by in expensive Key West.
They have a scooter for deliveries, this is just a piece of artwork, I'm pretty sure:The rooster is not real happily, though the large con leche is.

There are a couple of benches alongside the coffee shop, but what you see is what you get. All the food and drink comes out of here:The benches did not seem terribly appealing to me, as the food was large and deserved a table if I was to eat it cleanly. An uncharacteristic summer-type thunderstorm had blown over and the sun was shining again.

This was my six dollar sandwich, Cuban roast pork, a slice of ham, a slice of cheese, tomato, lettuce and fried onions. It was enough for two and it did not come in an un-ecological Styrofoam container for a change. My only problem was figuring out where to sit and eat this monster. I thought about Rest Beach, a long way away ( I suffer the travel disease too sometimes...) or possibly a bench alongside the harbor master's office at the nearby Key West Bight. Any sandwich would taste good overlooking the water.I ended up eating half and took the chips and candy cane with the other half to my wife in her classroom on my way out of town. She enjoyed it as much as I did.

That is, in fact half a sandwich!

Diagonally across the parking lot there is the convenience store called Caroline Street Market, but known informally locally as the Ay-rab Store(they are Bangladeshis that run it, but who's counting?) and they make their version of Cuban coffee:Close by there is Harpoon Harry's diner where you can get coffee with the infliction of TV whether you like that or not, and down the street a little further there is the Coffee Plantation that is rather more up market than a roadside hut. Lots of choices so one need never stagger too far to get a cup of coffee, whatever you end up calling it.