The Cuban chef and entrepreneur Elder Alonso, owner of the business Locco Pizza in Madrid, shared an emotional video documenting his reunion with his father after six years apart, a moment that quickly went viral among the Cuban community in Spain.
The video, posted on their Facebook profile, is titled "My father is with us again after 6 years apart due to distance" and garnered over 69,000 views in just a few hours.
The reunion took place at the Madrid airport, where Elder resides and runs his business.
His father was finally able to travel from Cuba to reunite with his son and grandchildren, who all went to meet him at the airport.
The six-year separation was not incidental: it was a deliberate decision that Elder Alonso publicly explained last April, when he revealed the sacrifice behind the success of Locco Pizza.
"All the money I would spend going to Cuba, I saved for the Locco Pizza project," the entrepreneur from Granma wrote.
In that same post, Elder was直言不讳 about the personal cost of that bet: "To achieve goals, one must make significant sacrifices such as not seeing family for years."
He also pointed out that it was precisely that resignation that marked a turning point in his business: "Since I decided not to return to the land that saw me born, I began to see economic results."
Locco Pizza, located in the Madrid neighborhood of Carabanchel, started during the COVID-19 pandemic and has become one of the benchmarks of Cuban cuisine in Spain thanks to its roasted pork, snacks, and pizzas made with artisanal Cuban bread crafted on-site.
The business reached a milestone in December 2024, when it sold out its 200 Christmas ham reservations in a single day, each priced at around 50 euros, with a line of customers stretching over four city blocks.
Elder's reunion with his father takes place within a reality shared by thousands of Cuban families fractured by emigration.
Similar reunions have become frequent on social media in recent years, reflecting the emotional weight carried by a diaspora that, in 2023, numbered over 220,000 Cubans residing in Spain, according to data from Hypermedia Magazine.
For Elder, this moment symbolically closes a cycle of sacrifice that he clearly described: “I will never forget where I come from, but I must be more focused on the future.”
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