11 May 21-27, 2026 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com NEW TIMES | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NEWS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2008 miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | CONTENTS | LETTERS | RIPTIDE | METRO | NIGHT+DAY | STAGE | ART | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | BitterSuite A beloved Wynwood café is starting over in Miami Beach. BY MICHELLE MUSLERA A fter eight years of serving some of Miami’s most beloved cafecitos in Wynwood, Suite Habana Cafe has closed its tiny shop and is preparing for a fresh start in Miami Beach. The Cuban-inspired specialty coffee spot shuttered its Wynwood location at the end of April after losing its longtime lease. However, there’s good news. The beloved coffee shop and café will reopen in June inside the bou- tique Crest Hotel Suites, just off 17th Street and Collins Avenue. The new location will come with more seating, an expanded food menu, and weekend brunch in collaboration with Cuban chef Osmel Gonzalez of Entre- Nos and Emelina. For co-owner and co-founder Nayelis Delisle, the move represents the end of a difficult chapter, but also the beginning of something bigger. “Moving from Wynwood was very delicate for me,” she says. “After eight years, it’s hard to start again. But seeing that our customers are buying our coffee online and drinking it at home, waiting for us, willing to follow us dur- ing the transition…it’s beautiful.” Delisle and her husband, Manny Lopez, opened Suite Habana Cafe in Wynwood in 2018. Their mission was to create a place cen- tered around hospitality and really good cof- fee. Born in Cuba, Delisle grew up drinking coffee with her grandmother, who brewed what Delisle describes as carefully guarded “real” coffee during the country’s difficult economic years in the 1990s. Some of her earliest memories involve sit- ting beside her grandmother as she described the smoky, chocolatey flavors of the coffee she drank daily. The café was also inspired in part by Cu- ba’s “paladares”, informal, family-run restau- rants that people opened in their homes during the economic crisis of the 1990s. “My mom had one in my grandmother’s patio,” Delisle says. “I remember the noise, the peo- ple talking, the food coming out of our kitchen. That was real hospitality.” Those memories became the inspiration for the café. Instead of recreating Miami’s co- ladas and ventanita culture, Delisle wanted to introduce people to another side of Cuban coffee culture, one focused on quality beans, careful brewing, and long conversations around the table. “In Cuba, coffee culture goes back 300 years,” she says. “When people think of Cu- ban coffee, they automatically associate it with Pilón or Bustelo, but we wanted to put specialty coffee on the table while keeping the Cuban soul.” That philosophy is what guided Suite Ha- bana from the very beginning. The café’s signa- ture house blend, developed and roasted by Delisle and Lopez, combines Brazilian and Co- lombian Arabica beans chosen to recreate the bold flavor profile Delisle remembers from childhood. Lopez, who previously worked in high-end coffee, says the pair experimented with multiple roast profiles before landing on a darker roast with notes of chocolate and to- bacco. “I wanted the coffee to be smooth, vel- vety, and leave that tobacco note in your mouth, almost like smoking a cigar,” adds Delisle. Here, you will not find matcha lattes nor the latest TikTok trend in coffee drinks. Del- isle says the café was never interested in chasing fads, and instead, she wants to follow tradition.“We come from a culture of ‘give me a dark roast, pon la cafetera, y vamos a chismear,’ and that’s the feeling I wanted to recreate here,” she says. The result has quietly earned the café a devoted fol- lowing over the years, along with national recognition from Bon Appétit and Condé Nast Traveler. Just last year, New Times fea- tured it as the best coffeehouse in Miami. In 2021, Joe Jonas spotlighted the café in a pandemic-era docuseries supporting small businesses and bought coffee for the next 500 customers after sharing the shop with his millions of followers. Over the years, Suite Habana also built a fiercely loyal local following with its espresso drinks, cold brew, salted chocolate chip cook- ies, vegan banana bread, and café bombon, a layered espresso drink with condensed milk. The café’s small but popular pastry program is also a family effort, with the couple’s 20-year-old son helping develop and bake many of the goods in-house. But Delisle says what has stayed with her most is the community support that followed. As the café prepared to leave Wynwood, cus- tomers stepped in to help. One offered ware- house space to store the café’s furniture and equipment during the transition, while another connected them to the Miami Beach location. “The community came to the rescue,” she says. “After all these years, I still believe in this city. Miami is home to me.” The new space will allow Suite Habana to expand beyond the six-item pastry menu it currently offers. Delisle says the food pro- gram will roughly double in size, with brunch becoming a major focus. The café will also continue selling its coffee beans online, which has quietly become a ma- jor part of the business. Delisle says she loves seeing customers recreate the experience at home using traditional Cuban coffee makers. That philosophy has shaped the business from the beginning. “We’re not a café that sells coffee with food,” Delisle says. “We’re a coffee company.” And if Delisle is right, her customers will follow her wherever she goes. “I think we do something very good for the city,” she says. “I just want to see Miami shine.” Suite Habana Café. At Crest Hotel and Suites, 1670 James Ave., Miami Beach. Open- ing June 2026. [email protected] ▼ Café Café Suite Habana Cafe photo Co-owners Nayelis Delisle (left) and her husband Manny Lopez founded Suite Habana Cafe in Wynwood in 2018 to bring authentic, nostalgic Cuban coffee culture to the area. OVER THE YEARS, SUITE HABANA BUILT A FIERCELY LOYAL LOCAL FOLLOWING. ▼ SOUTH BEACH LAST CALL South Beach’s last-call burger institution is getting pushed out. Cheeseburger Baby (CBB), the 25-year-old late-night staple at 1505 Washington Ave., is closing. Accord- ing to owner Stephanie Vitori, she received a sudden notice to vacate by June 27, 2026. Keyah Real Estate Group purchased the longtime SoBe building in 2024 for $20 mil- lion. It plans to replace it with a seven-story, 238-key hotel designed by Arquitectonica. Vitori didn’t start as the owner. She started out as a delivery driver at CBB in 2001 and bought the place from the original owner, Tommy Pooch, in 2004. She built it into one of South Beach’s most enduring late-night fixtures (it even won New Times’ Best Late-Night Dining 2022). Its burger window, which ran from 6 p.m. to 4 a.m., fed everyone from the after-shift industry crowd to Beyoncé, David Beckham, Dwyane Wade, Lamar Odom, and Anthony Bourdain. Vitori announced the news on Insta- gram earlier this week, tagging a greatest- hits roster of celebrity regulars from Dwyane Wade to Beyoncé to Guy Fieri. It was a public tribute to what the place had meant, and the comments came fast. “I grew up coming here after nights at Cameo and all over South Beach,” wrote one follower. “Some places are bigger than food — they become part of your life story.” A former staffer wrote that CBB was “one of the best and funniest jobs I’ve ever had” and that Vitori “always came through for me when she didn’t have to.” The Miami Beach Planning Board and Historic Preservation Board were sched- uled to review the development in July 2024. The incoming hotel will include a ground-floor restaurant and rooftop bar. But Miami has been doing this for years. The Last Carrot in Coconut Grove | TASTE TEST | >> p12 Cheeseburger Baby photo Miami Beach burger staple Cheeseburger Baby is being forced to close its iconic South Beach location after 25 years to make way for a hotel.
