Babaloo Cuban Café in Seaside closes up shop.

The Cubano sandwich queen of Fremont Boulevard has closed up shop. A sign on the door at Babaloo Cuban Café, which was located at The Press Club in Seaside, reads: “We are sorry to inform you that Babaloo is now closed.”

“It was just time,” owner Gladys Parada says. While she loved the cafe, “it never took off the way it needed to.”

When Babaloo opened it represented the culmination of years of dreaming and planning by Parada. "This incarnation of Babaloo is what I always dreamed of, from the first time I thought of having my own business," she told the Weekly at the time. "I feel like I’m in alignment. It took this long to figure it out."

It also came at a particularly tricky time for the restaurant industry—Babaloo opened on April 6, 2020, just about one month into California’s Covid-19 shutdown, after completing the final health inspection by FaceTime. The casual lunch menu of Cubano sandwiches (ranging from the classic to a steak Cubano with sliced potatoes and chimichurri sauce), empanadas and a truly standout slaw was to-go only at first. Slowly, as some restrictions ended, Babaloo opened again for in-restaurant dining and even a few salsa dancing nights.

But the pandemic was not friendly to the new business. By the summer of 2021, with business slower than expected, Parada was realistic but not defeated. “I’m not failing, I just don’t have money in the bank,” she told the Weekly. “I’m succeeding because I’m doing what I want.”

Now, Parada has made the choice to move on. She says that in hindsight she probably wouldn’t have opened a restaurant in the early days of the pandemic if she’d known what the next two years would bring, but of course back then no one knew. Instead of dwelling on the what-ifs, Parada focuses on the positives (like quality time with each customer who came through) and the lessons-learned. 

The slow pace also gave Parada the opportunity to get her real estate license, which she plans as her next career. She sees an alignment between the service of food and the service of helping people find homes, and she’s especially interested in working with first-time homebuyers. “I really love working with people and I hope I can continue to,” she says.