Express Cafe

There’s a place in Central Florida where people gather for strong espresso and dream-worthy sandwiches. Its story starts, as many great things do, with a cup of joe.

Julio Conde, a Venezuelan-American businessman, had long been a coffee drinker — he jokes that he was given café con leche in his baby bottle instead of milk. But it was his immersion in Miami’s Cuban-American business culture, where coladas, strong espressos sweetened with sugar, are an essential component of every meeting, that got him fully hooked. “It’s a moment that you share with friends or family or business partners,” he said.

In 2014, he opened Express Cafe, a little window at the Celebration Suites Hotel dedicated to bracing espressos.

“I had never been in the restaurant or coffee business,” he said. “It was more of a great place for me to have my own coffee the way I like it.”

It also quickly became a place for people to have caffeinated discussions the way that they did in Miami business meetings. Conde describes sitting down to talk politics at Express Cafe with a Syrian-American friend who had served in the U.S. Navy. The coffee became a bridge for conversation as they shared their perspectives about world events. “I used to have that whole idea of finding ways to unite people instead of, you know, highlighting what makes us different,” he said. “Coffee was for me the perfect venue for that.”

His customers, many of whom are staying at the Celebration Suites, come from all over the world, especially from Latin America.Today, Conde uses a blend of Cuban and Colombian beans for a strong, smooth, espresso that draws Uber drivers, construction workers, and international tourists alike starting at 8 a.m. Express Cafe offers the latte and cappuccino typical to U.S. coffee shops, but also some coffee preparations that are ubiquitous in the Spanish-speaking world: the cortado, a shot of espresso served with a roughly equal amount of steamed milk, and cafe con leche, a larger cup of steamed milk mixed with espresso. The space has limited seating indoors and a handful of tables outside, but customers still manage to find coffee-fueled  connections with each other and with staff. 

In 2015, a Venezuelan chef named Carla Sucre came by for a café con leche, and ended up chatting with Conde. The two hit it off, and in March 2016, Sucre transformed Express Cafe from a coffee shop to a bistro, using expertise gained through years of training in Venezuela, Argentina, and Orlando to develop a pan-Latin American menu that is now as much of a draw as the coffee.

Along the way, Sucre became Conde’s business partner, and his wife.

Sucre’s menu takes inspiration from all over the Americas. Her baked goods include pao de queijo, the Brazilian cassava-and-cheese bread, Argentinian-style baked empanadas, and tequeños, Venezuelan cheese sticks wrapped in pastry dough. For breakfast, hungrier customers can wolf down everything from pancakes to a Brazilian ham and cheese sandwich called a misto quente.

Those in search of lunch might try Express Cafe’s sandwiches. Sucre expertly prepares arepas, the stuffed cornmeal flatbreads beloved in Venezuela and Colombia alike, as well as cachapas, sweet-savory corn pancakes that are a street food in Venezuela.

But Sucre’s most well-known creation arrived while she was asleep. “She woke up in the middle of the night, and she said, ‘Write all of this down, we gotta go in the morning and buy it, and then we’re gonna cook it.’” The result was what she called “The Dream” sandwich: steak or chicken, provolone, crispy potato sticks, and a mustard-forward house dressing on an everything bagel.

People from Chile to South Africa to Japan have fallen in love with that sandwich. “They dream of the Dream,” Conde said.