Midtown Lunch

Cuban Sandwich from Sophie’s circa 2007
Last week somebody posted about the price hike at Sophie’s Cuban in the forums, and the comments lit up with general complaints about the Peruvian owned Cuban chain.  From the sound of things, the once great Latin food mainstay might be losing a step at its remaining few locations…
From mkim1206:
funny [...]

According to this posting in the ML forums, Sophie’s Cuban has raised the prices of its specials from $8.63 to $9.80 with tax.  Not a huge increase, but inching ever so close to being disqualified from Midtown Lunch status. I suppose it’s better than them closing more locations.

Inspired by this post on the Serious Eats: New York forum, I emailed Sophie’s Cuban to find out what exactly is in their green sauce. Their response: “It is a modification of peruvian aji, the only difference is that we are using jalapenos instead of the peruvian chile, which is called rocoto.” Whatever the hell it [...]

From a ML commenter who went to the Sophie’s Cuban on 50th & 3rd and decided to forgo the “pernil with a twist” in favor of their fried fish sandwich (with a twist): “I also asked him to tuck in some plantains and he didn’t even think twice about it. Awesome. Sweet and fishy. And [...]

When I first posted the Midtown Lunch Sandwich Challenge I listed Sohpie’s Cuban’s fried pork and plantain sandwich as one of the major inspirations. So I was pretty pleased to hear that they were going to participate in the challenge. And while their entry (the “pernil with a twist”) isn’t really all that different from [...]

Thanks to Lunch’er Chris for the Photo
I was pretty excited to get this email in the old ML Inbox recently, since the fried pork and plantains sandwich from Sophie’s was one of the inspirations for the Midtown Lunch Sandwich Challenge:
“Today I noticed that Sophie’s has a new ‘Special’ sandwich called the ‘Pernil with a Kick’.  It [...]

I will admit, I’m not a big fan of turkey sandwiches- or turkey in general for that matter.  In a lot of ways, Midtown Lunch is completely anti-turkey sandwich.  Every day I post lunch recommendations so you don’t have to go to a place like Cafe Metro for a turkey sandwich.  But there will be [...]

If only it had been like this every day…
Got a response yesterday from Sophie’s Cuban HQ explaining why the 40th Street location closed this week:
“It never really generated enough business to cover expenses. We had hoped that the scaffolding [that is up in front of the building] would come down by summer but instead their [...]

The Sophie’s Cuban location on 40th Street btw. 7+8th, which always seemed crowded during lunch, is now closed.  This surprising turn of events comes less than six months after being written up by the New York Times, and less than 9 months after opening.  The company itself doesn’t seem to be in any trouble (they just opened a new location on [...]

This weekend’s New York Times Travel section features an article about the best Cuban restaurants in New York City and both Margon (on 46th btw. 6+7th) and Sophie’s Cuban (multiple locations) are briefly mentioned at the end, as cheap options).  I love them both, but isn’t it nteresting that neither is owned by Cubans (Sohpie’s was started by [...]