Frank Machado never intended to end up in Minneapolis.
When he came to the city over a decade ago, Machado arrived right at the tail end of winter, in that “perfect Minneapolis marketing window” where you get to enjoy the warm, hazy summer months followed by a gorgeous, colorful fall.
“I thought I was gonna be here for six months, and that was in 2012—I haven’t left,” he laughs.
Upon arriving in Minneapolis, Machado’s resume included time at Michelin-starred spots like Jean-Georges in New York City, and he’d just wrapped up a few seasons in Aspen, where he worked for a food and wine magazine called Chef’s Club. He saw Minneapolis becoming a dining destination—Tim McKee was grabbing national headlines, and the culinary scene was evolving in exciting ways—and the city called to him. “I just came to be part of that,” he says. He became the head chef at Barrio, a more upscale Mexican spot with a great tequila program and the kind of place where Machado had always seen himself.
In addition to running the kitchen at Barrio, Machado opened a spot called Twin Cities Paella at the Kingfield Farmers Market. “Some people barbecue, some people grill out—I’m the one that does paella,” he says. It began with just a handful of weekend slots in its first season, but people loved the food. Machado added more and more dates, but Twin Cities Paella remained a side hustle; he was first and foremost a chef, busy working 60-hour weeks at Barrio as he raised a newborn in a new city.
Eventually that little farmers market stand grew into a full-on catering company with a half-dozen employees. “At some point, as a chef, after you’ve worked enough in different kitchens, you know that your next step is to do your own thing,” Machado says. He was only in his early 30s at the time, but in 2018, when he saw the former Xavi building on Chicago Avenue open up after a busy summer catering season, the timing felt right. Guavas Cuban Cafe opened that November.
Born in Venezuela, Machado grew up in Miami and some of his earliest restaurant experience was in Cuban restaurants. He’s always loved Cuban food, a “complete” cuisine from the coffee to the famous sandwich to the mojitos and tropical elements.
You can find a Cubano at all kinds of cafes and barbecue joints these days, but that wasn’t exactly the case eight years ago, and Machado felt responsible for bringing its platonic ideal to south Minneapolis all those years ago. Today, Guavas still has one of the city’s best ($16), a combination of thin and crusty bread, house-made pickles, slow-roasted pulled pork, ham, and swiss that Machado perfected by traveling the country from New York to Tampa Bay to Miami and trying different versions. Like the Tampa take on the classic sandwich, Guavas adds salami for an added punch of salty flavor.
When you come to Guavas craving one of the sanguiches, it’s hard to say no to the Cubano. If you’re able to, the Cuban Burger ($16) is a personal favorite: two juicy beef patties, cooked with chorizo butter for a bit of added decadence and then topped with soft sauteed onions and crispy shoestring potatoes or papitas, a requisite in the street food-style burgers of Little Havana.
Rather forego something served between slices of soft, slightly sweet Cuban bread altogether? How about the shrimp bowl ($17), with paradoxically massive shrimp swimming in a bright-red coconut sauce, or the lechon asada bowl ($17), with tender pork shoulder served on a bed of rice with sweet plantains? It’s tough to order the “wrong” thing at Guavas, and we haven’t even talked about the breakfast dishes, with bright-yellow yolks ready to burst alongside braised beef and potatoes (vaca frita hash, $16) or moro rice and picadillo (Havana breakfast, $14).
Machado has been reinventing and improving the cafe over the years, all the while navigating the pandemic, Operation Metro Surge, and all those other challenges that make restaurant ownership difficult for anyone (and restaurant owners of color especially). Over the summer, Machado spent some time remodeling the interior, updating the furniture (you’ll find stylish brown leather chairs surrounding tables now) and refreshing the decor.
“Some of the wheels were starting to squeak,” Machado says simply. On the practical side, he added QR codes for ordering on the tables; you can still order at the counter if you prefer, but now people don’t have to get up if they want to order a second beer or something for dessert. And you really should get a little something for dessert—those recipes have been in Machado’s family for ages. The flan ($7), for example, which arrives standing tall and dripping in caramel: “That’s straight out of my mom’s handwritten notes in a dusty old bin in the everything drawer in the kitchen,” Machado says.
Ultimately, he sees Guavas as “a tropical foodie escape to Miami—when it’s cold and gray out there, you can come to Guavas and get a little bit of that.” Of course, speaking as someone who’s never been to Miami, I have to take his word for it. Or maybe I’ll listen to the expats in Minneapolis, who often seek out Guavas and sing its praises.
“Every time I see people that have had a connection to Miami they say it reminds them exactly of Miami—the flavors, the vibe, the way the menu’s written, with the whole Spanglish thing going on,” Machado says. “That was intentional, and driven from those memories of growing up in Miami.”
Guavas Cuban Cafe
Address: 5607 Chicago Ave. S., Minneapolis
Hours: 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday to Thursday; 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday
