Storefronts under canvas awnings and neon signs along Calle Ocho, and the restaurant Chef used for its Miami scenes.
What Little Havana looks like
Calle Ocho runs through the neighborhood as a strip of one and two storey storefronts under canvas awnings. Hand painted and neon signage stack in Spanish and English above the doors. The 's steel spire rises over the sidewalk at Southwest 15th Avenue, its 1926 marquee still lit above the ticket booth. 's neon sign and striped canopy sit almost directly across from it.
Terrazzo stars for the Calle Ocho Walk of Fame are set into the brick pavement nearby. Máximo Gómez Park sits behind a low fence a block over. Its open sided, green roofed pavilion holds rows of tables, with benches along the edge.
Near , cigar shops keep their awnings striped dark red over glass block windows. A boutique close by sells guayaberas and straw hats behind a blue neon sign. A corner grocery further along keeps a life sized fiberglass rooster on the sidewalk outside its doors. Hand lettered signs in Spanish advertise meat and imported groceries in the windows.
The residential blocks south of the strip sit in Riverside and Shenandoah. One storey bungalows and small courtyard apartment buildings line them behind chain link fences and iron gates, their porches shaded by royal palms. Pink and white stucco facades repeat down the side streets, with barrel tile roofs on some of the older rows.
Shot in Little Havana
The production behind Chef filmed in two real Little Havana spots in 2013, Versailles restaurant on Calle Ocho and the nightclub Hoy Como Ayer nearby. Versailles keeps the same colonnaded white facade and lit marquee sign the film's Miami scenes were shot against.
Chef, 2014
Versailles, the Cuban restaurant that spans the block between Southwest 35th and 36th Avenues, is one of the real Miami locations the production used for Chef. Its white balustrade, arched window openings and red awnings face Calle Ocho exactly as the film found them. Street View
What Little Havana can double for
Downtown Hollywood in Hollywood, Florida
Hollywood Boulevard's storefronts are Mediterranean Revival, arched windows and textured stucco over barrel tile roofs from the 1920s, close cousins of the buildings behind Calle Ocho's awnings. Royal palms line the boulevard the same way they front Little Havana's sidewalks. Hold frames tight on one storefront at a time instead of the whole boulevard, which runs wider than Calle Ocho's two lane street. Add Spanish language signage where the dressing needs it. Try searching Mediterranean Revival storefronts now.
Bergenline Avenue in Union City, New Jersey
Bergenline Avenue in Union City is the Cuban and Latino retail strip New Jersey grew after the same exile wave, four miles of small storefronts under stacked Spanish signage. The buildings themselves are older northeastern masonry blocks rather than Miami's low stucco fronts, so the match is in the shopfronts, not the architecture behind them. Frame tight on the storefront windows and awnings, and keep the brick upper stories and rowhouse roofline out of the shot. Try searching Latino retail storefront strip now.
Ybor City in Tampa, Florida
Ybor City's Seventh Avenue is Tampa's own Cuban cigar district, lined with cigar shop storefronts under a similarly narrow, low rise commercial scale. Its buildings are brick with cast iron balconies from the district's 1886 to World War One rebuilding, against Little Havana's painted stucco and canvas awnings. Keep shots low and tight on the storefronts and signage rather than the upper facades, where the brick and iron balconies would look like a different city. Try searching cigar shop storefronts now.
