Pizzeria "La Romanita" closed and converted into a garbage dump

The pizzeria "La Romanita", located in Havana's Vedado, has been closed for four years and today is a garbage dump, according to several Internet users on social networks.

Located at the intersection of 11th and 16th streets, the pizzeria was once a meeting place for Cuban families living in Havana, especially in the 80s, and was characterized by the quality of its products and services, which were to the detriment of the passing of the years and the increase in deprivation in Cuba.

Although Yude Pupo, the person who shared the current photos of the restaurant on Facebook, assures that it has been closed to the public for four years,In 2020, the Havana government announced that "La Romanita" would guarantee the offer of family pizza during the New Year's Eve holidays.

CyberCubaIt has not been able to contrast all this information with official sources, because so far the local entities have not responded to the messages sent.

"The sad reflection of the Cuban dictatorship, with everything dirty and in poor condition. They are a continuation of hunger and repression. It gives me a lot of pain to see a place that I visited so much in those conditions," lamented one person.

"What a shame. They only build hotels without any history and the usual places in Havana fall apart one after another," criticized another Internet user.

"Since the local government has abandoned it and cannot rescue it, they should give it to some entrepreneur who is capable of making that Italian restaurant what it once was," someone suggested.

The Cuban opposition and journalist Adrián Leiva remembered in October 2004 when he visited, perhaps for the last time, "La Romanita" with the hope of reconnecting with the food they made in that place, where there were always people and it was worth waiting an hour in the queues that were made.

To his disappointment, Leiva found an empty place, without most of the products and a service of terrible quality, even though the gastronomic unit belonged to the Luxury Restaurant Company of Havana.

"La Romanita, which was once a pleasant gastronomic house for those of us who used to visit it, has today become - thanks to its bad administrators - a real disaster, where customers, far from having a good time, feel the sensation of having entered a species of the Roman coliseum, like gladiators who are made victims of an empire of corruption," the opponent wrote inCubaNet, years before appearing dead on the Cuban coast after trying to return to the island.

The Cuban writer Teresa Dovalpage, resident since 1996 in the United States, recalled in her book "Death Enters Through the Kitchen" her encounters at the Italian food restaurant and with special emphasis on the cream cheese they made there.

"Most restaurants were well beyond our budget; we got a small stipend, but it wasn't enough to eat in fancy places. However, for La Romanita we would make sacrifices or ask for money from our families. We would pool our savings and share two pizzas, two cream cheeses and a flan," he recalled.

The decline of Cuban gastronomy, affected by poor state management and the lack of resources generated by corruption, not only affects products and services, but also buildings that were once important for citizens, are now on the path to ruin and destruction. irreversible deterioration.

A person ordered a plate of food at the Casa de la Cerveza, Old Havana, and when they served itI had a spoon, which generated a wave of criticism from other social media users.

El Pío Pío at 39 and 42, Playa,the restaurant "La Carreta", in Vedado; andLai-Lai Chinese food place, in Varadero, are three recent examples of gastronomic facilities destroyed architecturally, endangering the lives of people passing through their surroundings.

"There is the smell of urine, the dogs wander and a fence curled by loose vines separates the abandoned space from the reality of the city. Many years ago the former Pío Pío de Playa stopped being a popular recreational center and became a small galloping ruin in the middle of the city", the official press denounced.