14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 30 May 2023 — Even during the worst of the Special Period, people lined up outside its entrances in double rows, waiting to get in. But the days when Coppelia could call itself the “cathedral of ice cream” are long gone.
Though it has not had to close like it did early this year due to a product shortage, it is barely keeping its head above water. To stay afloat, it has begun selling combo deals for 1,200 pesos apiece, as 14ymedio discovered on Tuesday.
These package deals contain nothing of nutritional value. One such combo comes with four cans of cola, two cans of orange soda, six packets of cookies and two bars of chocolate. Another contains four cans of cola, two of juice, one chocolate bar and eight packets of cookies.
As for the ice cream, the only flavors available were vanilla, pineapple and lime, at nine pesos a scoop, and the place was practically empty.
A young customer at the counter complained of the bad flavor combination of the 45-peso ice cream “salad.” When she asked that her order include only pineapple and lemon, the employee refused. “You have to have all three,” she said, “because the salads are mixed.”
Another customer, whose stomach is sensitive to acids, asked that the lime be left out. He got the same reply. The lime, he was told, was “mandatory.”
For good measure, the employee then put a scoop of lime on each order. The man was surprised to discover, however, that the most acidic of the three was actually the pineapple. The vanilla was simply bad. “This is what this country has come to,” he lamented. “Nothing is what you expect.”
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