Our History
True to their restaurateur roots in Lima Peru, the Luna family always dreamed of having their own restaurant in their new home in New York City. They struggled and saved for years to build their new restaurant. They opened in 1997 near the World Trade Center. Their business philosophy was the idea that fresh, tasty food in good portions served in a local-neighborhood atmosphere by friendly people would help them to realize the American Dream.
Sophie's had its inspiration in a Cuban Restaurant the family visited years earlier. On the weekends they had been selling Peruvian food from carts at the soccer fields in New York to earn the money to invest, but they thought that Cuban food might be a better idea for the City. They studied and researched everything they could find about Cuba, its culture, and its food. Then they hired expert Cuban Chef, Eduardo Morgado, to help them put it all together.
That first restaurant was so busy that they soon opened a larger restaurant nearby. That one was just as busy and by 2001 they had four Sophie's Cuban Cuisine® Restaurants open. 9/11 claimed the first two, but the family kept working hard and there are now five Sophie's Cuban Cuisine® restaurants again with more on the way. Sophie's is popular with all ethnic and socio-economic groups.