The Family Recipe Behind Rumba Cubana

Alan and Nairelys Lopez have grown Rumba Cubana from a Jersey City cafeteria into a group of restaurants rooted in authentic Cuban cooking and warm hospitality. Now, with six locations across the state, another opening in Teaneck and their first out-of-state restaurant headed to Florida this fall, the couple is expanding while keeping things personal.

Built around the Cuban food they grew up with, the menu features classics like ropa vieja (a national dish of Cuba), lechón asado (a slow-roasted pork dish), vaca frita (shredded and fried steak) and pressed Cuban sandwiches, with most dishes priced under $22.

But before they were business partners, they were teenage sweethearts in Cuba.

“My mom was his teacher for many years in middle school,” Nairelys says. “In high school, he was my first boyfriend.”

They went their separate ways before separately moving to New Jersey in 2001 and reconnecting at a party. Alan entered the restaurant business through dishwashing, while Nairelys studied accounting at Kean University, helping their family open the cafeteria-style Rumba Cafe in Jersey City in 2004.

“In Cuba, there is not that much ambition of wanting to become an entrepreneur,” Nairelys says. “But you always have that seed inside of you, that you like to be better in life, you want to grow.”

But success didn’t come quickly—or easily. When the first full-service Rumba Cubana opened in 2009, Alan would start his mornings at the family’s Jersey City cafeteria while Nairelys opened the new restaurant and ran it largely on her own until he arrived at dinnertime. With only a small staff of mostly family members, the couple filled whatever roles were needed, from hosting to overseeing day-to-day operations.

“It was a lot of work, a lot of stress,” she says. “But we’ve been blessed having a great team working for us. We even have a lot of the same employees since day one, the cafeteria.”

Every restaurant is under the Lopezes’ ownership and personal supervision. Alan says they make it a point to own the buildings housing their restaurants, insulating their dining destinations from rising rents squeezing restaurants across New Jersey.

Alan and Nairelys have two children, a 16-year-old son and an 11-year-old daughter, who they hope follow in their footsteps. “We don’t force it though,” Nairelys says.

Now, as Rumba Cubana crosses state lines, the Lopezes are still doing it together.