A Cuban sandwich from La Segunda Bakery [Photo courtesy of La Segunda Bakery]
By Paul Guzzo, University Communications and Marketing
Philadelphia has cheesesteaks.
Chicago boasts Italian beef.
New Orleans offers muffaletta, and New York shines with pastrami on rye.
And Tampa? Its offering is the Cuban sandwich — layers of pork (and sometimes salami), Swiss cheese, pickles and yellow mustard pressed hot between crusty Cuban bread.
In 2012, the Tampa City Council even declared it the city’s official signature sandwich.
But for one day a year, the Cuban sandwich belongs to everyone.
Every Aug. 23 since 2016, National Cuban Sandwich Day is celebrated with deals throughout the United States and even throughout the world.
Those who indulge might also thank the ĐÓ°ÉĐÔĘŔ˝ç.
USF researchers wrote the sandwich’s definitive history, the chemistry classes helped perfect the baking method used by the world’s best-known Cuban bread maker, and a graduate founded National Cuban Sandwich Day.
The cover for the history book on Cuban sandwiches [Photo courtesy of Andy Huse]
“USF students and faculty have always had great taste when it comes to Tampa’s native sandwich,” said USF booster Richard Gonzmart, a long-time supporter of USF and fourth-generation owner of the Columbia Restaurant, which has been serving Cuban sandwiches for 120 years.
“The Cuban sandwich is pure Tampa: layered, resilient when pressed, and unapologetically authentic,” Tampa Mayor Jane Castor said. “And thanks to USF, we’ve got the research to back it up. It’s not up for debate where the best Cuban comes from — it’s in our history, and in our hands.”
The history
This might sound strange, but for decades, there was a debate over the origins of the Cuban sandwich.
Both Tampa and Miami claimed their Cuban immigrants invented it — hence the name.
Tampa insists it includes roast pork, ham and salami.
Miami argues salami should never be part of the recipe.
As curator of Florida Studies at the USF Tampa Library, Andy Huse was often drawn into the debate.
“I was getting five or six calls a year about it,” he said. “I realized maybe it was time to write a book and look into the story behind the Cuban sandwich.”
Huse teamed up with USF Professor Bárbara Cruz and Jeff Houck, vice president of marketing for the Columbia Restaurant Group.
In 2022, they published “The Cuban Sandwich: A History in Layers,” exploring the delicacy’s origins and social history.
And it turns out the sandwich was invented in Cuba — at least according to historical records. Huse said it appeared on Havana menus in the 1800s, before showing up in a Tampa restaurant.
“I think people had lived with it being either Tampa or Miami for so long that it just became true,” Huse said.
Andy Huse
Bárbara Cruz
In Cuba, Cruz said, “They didn’t call it a Cuban sandwich. They referred to it as a mixto, or a combination.”
Still, Tampa deserves credit for popularizing it, they argue. It had the nation’s largest Cuban population for more than half a century before Miami became the culture’s epicenter in the 1960s.
“I hear so many stories from people with childhood memories about getting Cuban sandwiches with a grandfather or parent at a certain restaurant,” Huse said. “They have a real visceral association with the sandwich. It’s more than just a sandwich in Tampa. It’s part of our culture.”
Cuban bread being prepared at La Segunda Bakery in Tampa [Photo by Brian Adams]
The bread
If you’ve eaten even just one Cuban sandwich, there is a better-than-average chance that it was served on Cuban bread from La Segunda Bakery, the 110-year-old business with four locations throughout the Tampa Bay area.
Fourth-generation owner Anthony Copeland Moré estimates that they bake 22,000 loaves a day, six days a week. That’s nearly 7 million a year, shipped throughout the continental United States.
“We bake between 60 and 75% of the Cuban bread,” he said. “We’re definitely the largest producers in the world.”
The quality is owed, at least in part, to USF.
La Segunda founder Juan Moré came to Tampa via Cuba with a piece of paper scribbled with his Cuban bread recipe. In 1915, he opened the first La Segunda location in Ybor City, which was Tampa’s Cuban community.
Tony Moré [Photo courtesy of La Segunda Bakery]
But his grandson, Tony Moré, initially had little interest in going into the family business. His love was chemistry. He earned a bachelor’s degree in the subject as part of USF’s first graduating class and later earned a doctorate from another university.
Tony Moré then taught high school chemistry before deciding that baking was his true calling. La Segunda took off under his direction, and he often credited his USF chemistry background.
“When you’re baking Cuban bread, there are a lot of variables,” Anthony Copeland Moré said. “It depends on the weather of the day, the speed of the crew, the flour, the silo — all these different things. My father used his knowledge of chemistry to excel at figuring out solutions to get the dough coming out the right way no matter what.”
The holiday
Chris Spata took his USF journalism professors’ words to heart.
“They were clear that we could have fun, too,” said Spata, who graduated in 2011 and is a reporter for the Tampa Bay Times. “They said we could cover breaking news and work on investigations while also writing offbeat exposés.”
That USF lesson also led to the creation of National Cuban Sandwich Day.
“In August 2016, I did a story for the Times on where all these national food holidays came from,” Spata said. “Very few had ties to real proclamations or quasi-holidays. Most were made up by someone who paid calendar and marketing companies to promote it.”
So, Spata decided to see how easy it would be to start one.
Chris Spata {Photo courtesy of the Tampa Bay Times]
He chose Cuban sandwiches because, well, they’re delicious, and Aug. 23 because it was coming up – plus no other beloved food had claimed that date.
“It was already National Sponge Cake Day, but nobody really likes that,” Spata said with a laugh.
He created a Facebook page and drafted a press release, which he emailed to 1,200 food writers and submitted to top calendar sites.
“It wasn’t malicious, and I wasn’t trying to fool anyone,” Spata said. “I was just proving a point that these things are easy to start.”
But he didn’t expect it to take off the way it did.
A week later, when Aug. 23 rolled around, Spata woke to coast-to-coast media coverage and restaurants offering celebratory deals.
“It’s gone beyond national,” Spata said. “I’ve seen places in Korea and Europe celebrating it. So now it’s real and actually celebrated by a lot of people. I think it will probably be my strongest legacy. Honestly, I’m fine with that.”