Jose Garces’s New Cuban Diner Gets a Name And An Opening Date

We know quite a few things about the new Cuban diner that Jose Garces is going to be dropping into the space on Chestnut Street that once housed his occasionally-underrated Latino-Asian fusion restaurant, Chifa. We know that there’ll be Cuban sandwiches and we know that there’ll be empanadas. That there’ll be an integral take-out component to the concept, with a counter selling completas and pasteles right inside the door. We know that there’ll be a rotisserie and a rum menu, that Yun Fuentes will be running the kitchen. And we know that the big man himself really wanted the place to be open 24 hours, but still isn’t sure whether or not that’s going to fly.

And now, we know two other very important things: The name of the place and it’s opening date.

According to very well-placed sources, we have learned that the place we’ve previously just been calling “Garces’s Cuban diner” will actually be called Rosa Blanca, after the Jose Marti poem.

Also according to sources, we know that the place ought to be opening on or around October 21–giving the Garces crew just a little more than a month to complete the turnaround and bring in all the required sandwich presses.

Oh, and let’s not forget that at the same time he’s scrambling to get Rosa Blanca ready for its debut, Garces is also working on bringing Volver, his project at the Kimmel Center, to life.

All Garces coverage [Foobooz]