Cuban Coffee Windows of Miami is the independent, self-published book that started the modern Ventanita wave.
In the 1960’s, they were called Cafetin. Up until 2016, it was "A la ventana;" and they were generally referred to in writing as "Ventanilla," with two L's, Spanish style, as in from Spain, even by Cuban-American food blogger Burger Beast, and the so-called New Times.
When I published my book, there was no "La Ventanita" cafeteria at FIU. There was no "La Ventanita" inscription on the window at Versailles. Several media companies backdated their articles to meet the newly popularized nomenclature later.
I did not invent ventanita. It's a basic word utilizing the common linguistic diminutization feature found in both Cuba and Russia (which post-revolutionary Cubans are still indoctrinated into the traditions as well as evil communist brainwashings of on the island to this day), but "Ventanita" had no social cache or active zeitgeist in popular media, where Cuban coffee windows went largely overlooked as something to be proud of for decades. I had my idea for a book on them since 2009, but a couple of articles on them came out the year I started, 2015, but before me (Mandy Baca, Sef Gonzalez).
The Miami cafecito is a local and therefore American invention.
In fact, the very concept of "Cuban coffee" is built on commodification and cultural appropriation, from the beans to the machines.
Walk-up coffee windows have existed in many countries, including Italy, where Miami's Cuban espresso machines are traditionally from. Coffee was actually introduced to the western hemisphere in Martinique, Cuba, the Bahamas, Haiti, Jamaica, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Brazil, and Colombia, via French and Spanish explorers. But coffee windows most likely originated somewhere in the North African and Arab worlds, where much of early coffee history leads back to, and whose trade centers were famed for great markets that still stand today.
Cafeteria coffee
windows vastly predate air conditioning and they are not a Cuban
invention by any means. In fact, windows are not defined by glass or
metal tracks, but by empty space in the wall of a building, a very
ancient architectural tradition that no Miami businessman can lay claim
to.
Cafeteria walkup windows can also be found in the snowy climes of much older American cities like NYC, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Boston, cities where there are bagel windows, soup windows, pizza windows, American coffee windows, liquor windows and plenty more; even California, where hamburger windows evolved into the drive-thru's we all know today.
Tampa or Key West likely had the first Cuban coffee windows in Florida. Places where significant Cuban communities existed before Miami, where "Cafetin" became popular on Calle Ocho in the 1960s, when hundreds of independent coffee shops, carts, stands, and markets of all kinds lined the streets of Little Havana, quickly becoming the cultural and economic force that came to dominate Miami.
As to the original creation and creators of coffee windows in Miami, many works exploring it came before mine (articles, not books) and I will be glad to share what I have found and I will write more on this hilarious topic in a future article.
