Located at 10451 Gibsonton Drive in Riverview , Box of Cubans serves up specialty Cuban coffee, gourmet sandwiches, empanadas, and rice bowls to packed crowds. The restaurant was born on July 5, 2017, and it’s now preparing to expand to a new flagship location in Tampa before launching a franchising push that will expand its reach within Florida and nationwide.
“We’re going to be the first of our kind in the market,” Marcos Silverio , who owns the restaurant together with Onelia Silverio , told What Now on Wednesday. “We want to start in the area first and then go national.”
The new location—at 17512 Dona Michelle Drive in the Big Bear Crossing shopping center—will offer the same menu that has made Box of Cubans a runaway hit in Riverview (with 4.8 stars Yelp from 352 reviewers), and it will also serve as a training facility for future franchisees.
“There’s been so much enthusiasm,” Silverio said. “So we said, okay, we need to have a flagship location where we can be very hands-on with our franchisees.”