Cuban-American couple expands food business

Jose Reyno is the owner of Lelo’s Cuban Cafe & Freshly Squeezed Lemonade and his wife Michele works with him on the trailer.

“We started two years ago with lemonade,” said Michelle Leino.

At the time, they were actually in the craft business. Michele Reyno has taken crochet, knits and other crafts to festivals and fairs. “We saw this lemonade vendor and she was busy the whole time. She was very busy because she was only selling one product of hers. Are you?’ he said.”

Gradually it expanded from just lemonade to Italian ice cream, coffee and other beverages.

After briefly operating lemonade stands and trailers at these festivals, they realized something else. “Some places we went to didn’t have food or didn’t have food that we cared about. We knew we needed Cuban food,” said Michele Reino.

They started selling only Cubano sandwiches in September 2021, eventually expanding to a larger menu and full-time operations last fall.

The Reynoss met as young men in Tampa. “He was the boy next door,” said Michele Reino, who is of Cuban, Spanish and Italian descent.

“I was born in Cuba in 1960 and moved to America with my parents in 1967.

The Reynos, who are celebrating their 41st anniversary this year, moved to Winston-Salem in 2018 to bring their son and family closer together.

Cubano ($10) is their bestseller. Classic Cuban he sandwich with roast pork, ham, Genoese salami, Swiss cheese, pickles, mustard and mayonnaise on Cuban bread.

Lelo’s also uses it in their Grilled Onion Sandwich ($10) with roast pork.

Also available is the Cuban Steak Sandwich ($12). “We use thin sirloin tip steaks,” he says Jose Reyno. “It’s marinated in seasonings. Then it’s grilled with onions. It’s the bread itself that makes the sandwich Cuban.”

Sandwiches are buttered, pressed, warmed and toasted.

Reynos likes Publix’s home-baked Cuban bread and pre-orders it in bulk for Lelo’s.

They offer a vegetarian plate of Cuban beans, rice, and fried plantains for $7.

Other items include beef and cheese empanadas, beef and pork stuffed potatoes, and chicken croquettes ($5 each).

“Croquettes are the only item we don’t make ourselves,” said Jose Reino.

The Reynos’ daughter-in-law makes dipping sauces, spicy mango bango, and creamy avocado lunches.

In addition to the items above, Lelo’s may offer soup specials. Reynos recently served a Spanish bean soup with chickpeas, ham, flank steak, onions, potatoes and cabbage.

They also serve lemonade, Cuban coffee and espresso. They order lemonade. “We use real sugar,” Michele Reino said. “But we can go sugar-free if people want to.”

Dessert is empanadas stuffed with guava and cream cheese.

“I drove to Florida for this delicious sandwich,” said patron Andrea Ward. “We tried different places and they really got it.”

“My sandwich was great, very tasty, not too heavy, and the price is right,” said Michelle Kennedy, general manager of The Brewer’s Kettle, which they visited for the first time last week.

Last year, the Reynoss began working with Short Street Gastro Lab, a communal commercial kitchen in Kernersville, to expand their business. Now they are looking to increase their business from 3-4 times a week to 5-6 times a week.

They have played gigs repeatedly at Fidlin Fish Brewing Company and Tucker’s Tap Yard in Winston-Salem. They’re lining up to perform a series of summer concerts at Shelton Vineyards starting in May, and they’ll be at He The Brewer’s Kettle in Kernersville every Friday lunchtime.

“We also have online ordering, so you can pre-order on our website and pick it up wherever you are,” says Jose Reyno.

We also plan to add third-party distribution through services such as DoorDash and Grubhub.