Bagels, ham, and picadillo: The story behind Florida’s Jewbans Deli Dàle
A Jewban’s customer bites into Pan con Bistek (Cuban Steak Sub) Courtesy of Instagram
Married couple Julie Dana is Jewish. Her husband Ray Garcia is Cuban, not Jewish. Both share a passion for cooking, so they figured: why not mix cultures?
And so Jewban’s Deli Dàle was born.
Based in Naples, Florida, Jewban’s operates a food truck, catering company and will soon have a brick-and-mortar outlet opening in July.
“Being a part of Cuban and Jewish cultures means it’s all about food, family, love, and more food,” Dana said. “We always talked about one day, we would love to open a Jewish and Cuban restaurant.”
The couple quit their corporate jobs in 2015 and opened up their first food truck. It took off, and they worked non-stop to keep it going. Customers told them they “suck at being retired.”
The company’s name, Jewbans Deli, seemed obvious. “Jewbans” is a very Miami term for Cuban Jews.
“Me being from Miami, there are many Jewbans,” Garcia said.
That could explain why Jewbans joins with a small but growing number of Cuban-Jewish food outlets. Stephens Deli in Miami reincarnated a traditional Jewish deli as a Jewish-Cuban fantasy, complete with cocktail bar. And chef Joshua Marcus’ artisanal Josh’s Delicatessen in Surfside actually has a Jewbans Sandwich (house-cured pastrami, sliced pork, Swiss cheese, mustard on freshly made challah bread).
These restaurants — and recipes — highlight the food of both cultures. Jewsban’s Deli serves Jewish and Cuban delicacies such as the classic Cubano sandwich, frita Cubana, and Nova lox and a hot pastrami sandwich from a 100-year-old recipe, and it also goes for the Cuban-Ashkenzai mashups.
Jewban’s Club—a bagel and sweet Cuban ham. Courtesy of Instagram
“The Jewban” is a decidedly unkosher New York-style bagel stuffed with Cuban sweet ham. The “Picadillo Kakletin” is the classic raisin-sweetened Cuban ground beef dish, but with kasha and bowtie pasta: kasha varnishke by way of Havana.
Naples resident Albert Arguelles found out about the food truck through social media and said as soon as he met the couple, he knew this was “a beautiful thing.”
“They do a good job representing both cultures so well,” Arguelles said. “They open people’s eyes to the food they didn’t grow up with if they weren’t from that culture.”
Arguelles, who is from Cuba, often orders The Jewban.
“Not only do they make great food, but they also connect with their customers in a way that’s not very common. You do feel like you’re part of their family and their success,” Arguelles said.
The couple operates from a distinctive truck open on three sides with fold-down counters and barstools. They make the experience like “hanging out in the kitchen,” said Garcia.
Ray Garcia and Julie Dana, the husband and wife team behind Jewban’s Deli Dàle Courtesy of Instagram
Anayma Shreeve-Colón discovered them on a restaurant Google search and has been a customer ever since. Though she moved an hour away from Naples, she loved the food so much that she had Jewbans cater her wedding a couple of years ago.
“Everybody at the wedding loved the food,” Shreeve-Colón said.
But for Shreeve-Colón, it’s about more than the food. The business, she said, “brings awareness” of the kind of people that make Miami special.
“Being mixed, it’s really hard to be accepted,” Shreeve-Colón said. “So when people taste the food and they see what it’s like, they see the two cultures coming together.”
Despite the accolades and early success, the couple faced the challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Prior to the pandemic, we were still working back to back, seven days a week, non-stop, sometimes we did two events in a day,” Dana said. “When the pandemic hit, we shut down the truck for the first few months.’
First, they opened the truck for private events, then started cooking up massive batches of matzo ball soup to sell to customers facing pandemic food shortages. On “Matzo Ball Mondays,” they met up with customers around Naples to sell soup.
“We said the FBI was chasing us because they’re wondering what these people are doing around town exchanging containers for money,” said Dana.
Chicken soup deliveries helped Jewban’s survive the pandemic Courtesy of Instagram
But Matzo Ball Mondays saved Jewbans.
“That sustained us, thank God,” Dana said. “Then the ‘Matzo Ball Mondays’ became ‘Matzo Ball any day’ because people were sick with COVID and the flu and they were calling. They were asking if we could make and deliver it, because you know, it’s Jewish penicillin.”
When Florida finally gets back on track, the couple is looking forward to opening an actual restaurant.
The couple, who have five children and two grandchildren, already have family-oriented events planned for the restaurant. On “Good Shabat Friday,” they’ll light Shabbat candles, say prayers and serve meals.
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