14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, Cienfuegos, 7 December 2024 — The strategy of some state-run businesses in the city of Cienfuegos, which, in the absence of appetizing dishes, seek to attract customers by extending service beyond their walls, is similar to the joke repeated decades ago by Cuban comedian Chaflán. When a wife suggests to her husband that they go out to eat, he answers: “Let’s move the table to the patio.”
With red tablecloths, small plates and even an ashtray, several tables at the Dinos Pizza restaurant block the way on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant every weekend. Passersby have to make their way around the obstacles, although they never see anyone sitting on the stools, enjoying an aperitif or paying the bill. “It takes a lot more than putting all these things out for people to want to eat here,” says a nearby resident who mocks the initiative.
Inspired by the terraces of restaurants and cafes very common in Europe, employees have moved the service outdoors because if diners do not come inside looking for a tasty meal, then they have to go out to catch them even if it means interrupting their path and causing them the occasional start if they walk distractedly along the sidewalk.
“Only a tourist falls into that trap,” said a young man near the tables, which were arranged as if part of a stage set. The state-owned Dinos Pizza chain, run by the Palmares SA Extrahotel Company, sells mainly fast food. At its peak, at the beginning of this century, when the Venezuelan oil subsidy encouraged large investments in public services, the franchise was very popular.
However, the lack of budget, the supply crisis and competition from private businesses have hit Dinos Pizza hard, turning it into little-visited, filthy establishments with a limited menu. “The workers are trying to keep it from closing, but now with all the adjustments that have taken place in the gastronomy sector, they demand profitability and a certain volume of income which they have a hard time obtaining,” says Julia, a retiree from Palmares who is aware of the difficulties that the company is going through, speaking to 14ymedio.
“Now, all the managers and officials are talking about the so-called productive linkage with the new economic actors, but here in the city of Cienfuegos there are few state-owned businesses that have achieved this.” The Dinos, which displays some of its chairs and tables on the sidewalk, “does not receive any payment in foreign currency, so it has very limited ability to purchase products that require freely convertible currency (MLC). For example, if they want to offer customers a mojito, they cannot close a deal to buy bottles of Havana Club in a store in that sells only MLC.”
“Several premises that were previously managed by Palmares have been handed over to private MSMEs, but some are still under state management, although it is clear that they are suffering losses and, sooner or later, they will have to close,” adds the woman. “The employees themselves try to delay the inevitable because they know that, when it passes into private hands, the State will offer them a position in a worse location. Most do not accept the new position and end up going home.”
“I think this is more about presenting a certain image of commercial dynamism and that this is a normal city,” warned a customer outside a central store, a few meters from El Prado, who came across a table, also on the sidewalk, where bottles of sweet wine, vinegar and a rum “so bad that it doesn’t even have a label” were on offer.
The man points to another reason for the increase in sales “outside the door.” “Here we spend almost the entire working day without electricity, in those interior spaces there is no one, neither the workers nor the customers who can stand it,” he explains, and behind him the interior of the shop is practically dark due to the blackout. “Taking the products out onto the street is the only way to be able to sell them, because nobody wants to go into that wolf’s mouth.”
The goods, tablecloths and forks left out in the open are faced with another serious problem: the lack of hygiene. “In Paris or Madrid these tables will look very nice, almost on the street, but here there is a lot of accumulated dirt, a lot of people wandering around and asking for money, a lot of abandoned animals that approach you to ask you to give them some food,” laments another customer who barely read the menu at Dinos Pizza and immediately turned around.
Although the name bears the traditional Italian dish, the disappointed customer did not find on the menu board those five letters that are universal and understood everywhere on the planet: pizza. “There is a lot of apathy, the employees move as if in slow motion,” the woman concluded. A tourist passing by the restaurant ended up sitting in one of the seats in front of the small plate and the glass ashtray.
For a few minutes, before the traveler read the menu, that red tablecloth, with its cutlery, looked like any other in a distant city, where terraces are part of the local gastronomy and are customers’ favorites. That impression only lasted a few minutes, until the man noticed that he was in the middle of a set, got up and left.
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