The Puerto Rican community in the Madison area is bigger than its Cuban community, and Martinez said more people of Puerto Rican descent visit his cart but they also eat his Cuban food.
“Mine is said to be the best Cuban sandwich you can get outside of Miami,” Eugenio Martinez says of his Cubarican’s Cocina version.
Eugenio Martinez
He said he’s not doing any remodeling of the space, just some cleaning and reconfiguration of the layout.
Martinez has had his trailer almost a year, and it’s been operational since mid-April. It can typically be found from 5 to 9 p.m. Thursdays and from 1 to 5 p.m. Saturdays at the Boneyard, a dog park biergarten, 1018 Walsh Road. Martinez said he will not be there this Thursday.
The trailer can also be found on Mondays at the Dive Inn, 521 Cottage Grove Road, and otherwise at Madison parks including Olbrich and Elver.
He sold his food for three months last year at the Green Room on Atwood Avenue.
Martinez mostly makes his food in the food trailer itself, which has a full kitchen, but uses FEED Kitchens on Madison’s North Side as his base kitchen.
He lived in New York until he was 13, then finished school in Delavan. He lived in Florida on and off but ended up in the Madison area in 2007 because his mother was living in Waunakee.
When he was 22, Martinez got a tattoo that says Cubarican’s on his right shoulder. “It was just one of those things where I was like, ‘I’m Cuban and Puerto Rican. Cubarican sounded better than Puertocuban, so I just kind of went with the Cubarican, not realizing that it was actually a thing.”
He thought he had made it up, but once he Googled it, he found it was something that people say and there was tons of merchandise out there.
Ever since, Martinez has wanted to open a restaurant and give it that name. He hopes to serve lunch and dinners until late.
Dining and Cooking