It was time for a new look.
The Hallandale Beach location of Padrino’s Cuban Restaurant was the first for the eponymous, family owned boutique chain of eateries, which debuted in 1981. Now the third generation of that family has reimagined the decor at their food-and-beverage legacy spot.
“Third generation means we are able to, within each generation, bring in the new,” says Laura Padrino Corredoira, director of sales and marketing. “My grandparents started it, gave it over to my dad — he was able to contribute and add a lot of value. My brothers and I, you know, we’re not quite 40, so we’re still able to bring in that new, young blood and new ideas. That’s how we’re able to keep it fresh, because each generation has added value.”
Corredoira, who runs the Padrino eats empire with brothers Eddie and Mario, spearheaded the remodel. She gave the Hallandale Beach location a streamlining in 2000, to make it visually blend with the other two locations at that time, in Plantation (which opened in 1992) and Boca Raton (1996).
“I do the design myself. I’m not an interior designer, but I interior design,” she says with a shrug.
By the way, the current Plantation restaurant is in a new location, which opened in 2023. In South Florida, there are also Padrino’s restaurants in Fort Lauderdale (2017) and Dania Beach (2019), but the Padrino’s food and beverage history stretches all the way back to 1930s Cuba with a small market and winery.
THE DESIGN
While she kept the decorative DNA of 1950s-era Cuba, Corredoira said she wanted each location to have its own visual vibe.
“I have made all of them really different, and that is because I don’t want them to feel like a chain. I always say we’re a collection, not a chain, because we have multiple locations, but we’re also family owned, and we have control over everything, so they’re all slightly different,” she says.
Among the new changes, the Hallandale Beach location is “incredibly bright” with loads of natural light, she says, and there’s a tropical-themed mural with banana leaves and birds-of-paradise.
“We made this entire wall — it’s a half-wall that divides some of the seating right when you walk in — that’s got over 150 cigar-box lids. That was just fun. It was fun collecting them. It was fun putting it together. It was more challenging, honestly, than I expected, because it’s a puzzle with no end, so you don’t know exactly what you’re going for. And that’s a design element that we didn’t do anywhere else,” she says.
“So it’s a bright and fun energetic feel in there, which is great. It’s what I was going for, being so close … to the beach and [with] all the tourists that were going to be coming in looking for traditional Cuban. I wanted to give them what they were expecting. I never wanted to be kitschy Cuban, like it’s not going to feel thematic. That’s not my thing at all. So you get the Cuban feel, you get tropical. But it’s definitely refined.”
THE FOOD
One thing they didn’t want to change too much was the menu.
“It’s super important to us that we prioritize the recipes,” she says. “They are my grandmother’s recipes. We do not mess with them. They have been the same for 50 years. People like to think of restaurants as chef-led. I say ours are recipe-led. So these are 50-year, time-tested recipes that we would be foolish to mess with at all.”
However, they did tweak the presentation a bit at all Padrino’s locations. “I have added a couple things and taken twists to some, still leaving the recipe, but just enhancing the experience. We just had some fun with a couple items to make them more experiential … a little bit more interactive. … You still have the culture that was really established by my father, we’re just bringing in the new while maintaining the old.”
One example: the non-Cuban chicken sandwich. Corredoira and her brothers added caramelized onions, mozzarella cheese, cilantro aioli and then toasted the whole thing.
“I named it the Cha Cha Chicken Sandwich,” she says. “I have a thing about alliteration. And when we get asked, ‘Why is it called Cha Cha Chicken Sandwich?’ We answer, ‘It’s so good, it makes you want to dance.’”
Desserts also got a refresh. The Tres Leches Cake now has some add-ons included into the dish.
“It’s her recipe. I just … put more of it in a bowl. Then we put toppings … on a board, like a cutting board. And you have chocolate chips and coconut flakes and almonds and leche and guava. So you could put all these on and make every bite different. Or if you’re sharing with people, you can each have a kind of a different experience.
“It’s going to be the same in terms of what you know and love,” she reiterates. “We are just making the experience better. Owners are still the same, recipes are still the same, just a slightly different look.”
THE BAR
When the transformed Padrino’s Hallandale Beach debuted in November, it unveiled its first-ever contemporary, full-service bar in a mix of green hues, with a mirrored wall and glass shelving, serving handcrafted mojitos and cocktails such as Classic Mojito, Cielo and Pinar Del Rio.
The idea was to give the customer one location for everything.
“So there weren’t [bars in] any of the locations until the third generation came on,” Corredoira recalls. “Years and years ago, people went out to eat because they wanted good food, period. Then a few decades ago, it started with: I want good food and I want good service. So we had those things. Now I truly believe … that people want a full experience. They want to have the full bar where you can have a drink that complements your meal. They want it to be interactive, you know, beautiful. [They] want to take pictures of it. That is all recent. You can see that there is a shift.
“We also like to say, my brothers and I, the third generation, that we wanted to create a place that we want to go to. We are so busy. We have families, we have work, etc. So when we do go out, we are not just going out for good food or good food and service. We want everything.”
Padrino’s Hallandale Beach is located at 2500 E. Hallandale Beach Blvd. Visit padrinos.com or call 954-456-4550.
