What do you actually get for under ten dollars at a Cuban sandwich counter in Orlando? That depends entirely on where you’re standing. At Cubans on the Run, a small, cash-friendly counter operation tucked into a strip plaza on South Orange Blossom Trail near the Michigan Avenue intersection, the answer is: more than you’d expect, and faster than feels reasonable.
The place has been operating in some form since the early 2000s, and it looks it — in a good way. There’s no aggressive branding, no chalkboard with a punny name for every item. The menu is short and handwritten in parts. You order at the counter, they call your name, and you either take it to one of the handful of tables inside or leave. A lot of people leave. The name is not ironic.
The Cuban sandwich — pressed, golden, with a solid ratio of roasted pork, ham, Swiss, and pickle — runs around $8.50 depending on the day. The bread is the thing people argue about here: it’s baked locally, not shipped from Miami, but it behaves correctly. It’s got the right amount of give and crust, and the press flattens it without turning it to cardboard. If you’ve had mediocre Cubans at airport kiosks or chain cafeterias, this will recalibrate your expectations in about three bites.
The ropa vieja plate is worth ordering if you have time to sit. It comes with rice, black beans, and sweet plantains, and the beef is properly shredded and sauced — not dry, not aggressively sweet. It’s the kind of plate that makes you wonder why you don’t eat here every week. The total, with a café con leche, will land somewhere between twelve and fourteen dollars.
The café con leche is made the right way: strong espresso, steamed milk, served in a styrofoam cup because that’s what works. The croquetas — ham, in the Cuban style — are fried to order and come out hot enough that you should wait thirty seconds before biting. Most people don’t, and it shows on their faces.
OBT is not a neighborhood that gets a lot of food press, which is partly why places like this operate without fanfare and without the prices that come with fanfare. The clientele on any given lunch hour is a mix of nearby construction workers, older Cuban-American families who’ve been coming for years, and the occasional confused tourist who punched the wrong thing into Google Maps and ended up very lucky. The staff is efficient and polite without being performatively warm. Nobody is going to ask how you’re enjoying your meal or explain the concept of a Cuban sandwich to you.
If you’re driving down OBT and you want a real lunch — not a novelty, not an experience, just good food at a fair price — Cubans on the Run is worth pulling over for. Go before 1 p.m. if you want the croquetas before they run out, which they do, most days, by early afternoon.
