Havaco

No stars, as Burt has closed up shop and doesn’t seem to have moved to a new place. The closest place I found for a good Cubano and delicious cafecito is South Ocean Drive Market Café (3804 South Ocean Drive across from the Diplomat) which I will do a review on at a later date.

: When you want a sandwich on the beach but don’t want it to involve you being wedged between two morbidly obese hairy men :
Havaco is one of those unassuming beachside places that you wander into when looking to avoid the long wait that besieges all the other restaurants and shacks around it. While we walked down the boardwalk [or Broadwalk, as the locals call it], I started craving a gooey ghetto burger. We walked by a Greek place, an Italian joint, and Armenian spot — no gooey ghetto burgers.
I wasn’t in the mood for pizza, though. Just as I was going to relent and accept my fate with one of the more ubiquitous options, I saw a photo of a cheeseburger plastered on an outdoor sign for a Cuban café. Awesome!
But then, like any self-​respecting bipedal creature, I just couldn’t bring myself to order a cheeseburger at a Cuban restaurant.
So, I ordered a ham & cheese sandwich, a cheese toast, a mamey milkshake, and a guava and cream cheese pastelito.
The ham & cheese sandwich was exactly as described. It had ham. It had cheese. It went into my belly.
The guava pastelito was damn yummy and I ate the crumbs I found on my shirt hours later.
All in all, it’s a pretty solid place if you find yourself on the boardwalk in search of cheap, reliable eats. They have all sorts of coffees, drinks, and shakes. And also, if you’re so inclined, they’ll make you a cheeseburger.
The only drawback was the cigar smoke. They make and sell cigars there. Naturally, this attracts annoying, cigar-​smoking types who light up while still inside the restaurant and who blow the smoke in your direction as if it’s anything less than revolting.
But you can easily shoo those people away with the stink eye.