After fire destroyed the Buford Hwy location they decided to reopen in a new location in Canton, GA.
Debbie Benedit sits down to a Cuban sandwich with sides of rice and black bean soup at her new restaurant, Havana Sandwich Shop in Canton.Photo by Amber M. McCloskey
By Donna Harris
Cherokee Tribune Staff Writer
A new culinary taste has come to town.
Debbie Benedit and her son, Eddie Benedit, brought their Cuban specialties that Atlantans have enjoyed for 32 years to Canton when they opened their second Havana Sandwich Shop last Tuesday.
Ms. Benedit said she and her son, who both live in Canton, thought it was time to bring authentic Cuban food to their neighborhood.
"This is home for us," she said. "They talk about Cherokee County as a place to live, work and play. We live and play here. Now we're going to work here, too."
"We've lived up here 20 years, and we decided to stop feeding strangers in Atlanta and start feeding our neighbors," Benedit added.
The pair had discussed opening a location in Canton before, but the city "just wasn't ready for it," she said.
"(Now) the timing was right," she said. "We're on the ground level for what is getting ready to happen here. We wanted to bring it here to Canton and let people experience something different. We have all the chains, but there are very, very few mom-and-pop, family-owned restaurants here or anywhere anymore."
They found an available building - the former site of Long John Silver's in front of Kmart on Marietta Highway - that was "basically set up like the one in Atlanta," and they jumped on it, she said.
"It made sense," she said. "It was such an easy decision to do."
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