A restaurant more than a decade in the making has finally opened its doors at 6836 Gravois Avenue in Boulevard Heights, where Sabor Cubano is serving up Cuban sandwiches, pizzas, and slow-cooked classics in a space filled with Cuban flags, tropical greenery, and framed pesos. Owner Dayanna Herrera started as a home-based Cuban food seller after immigrating to the United States more than ten years ago, and that side business eventually grew popular enough that she and business partner Jesus Valivo decided to open a brick-and-mortar restaurant.
“It's been a life-long dream of mine to share the Cuban food we love,” Herrera said, according to St. Louis Magazine. Sabor Cubano, whose name translates to Cuban flavor, occupies the space long known as Apollonia Greek Restaurant, and Herrera credited the previous owners for how they left the building. “The owners at Apollonia kept the building in beautiful shape,” she said, per the same report. Herrera and her team transformed the interior into a Cuba-inspired atmosphere, adding travel posters, Cuban license plates from each province on the island, a wooden map of Cuba, cigars, dominoes, and Cuban art throughout the dining room.
What's on the Menu at the New Gravois Avenue Spot
The kitchen, overseen by Herrera and Valivo, makes nearly everything in house from scratch. The menu leans heavily on Cuban sandwich variations, including the signature Habanero Cuban with ham, cheese, dill pickles, Cuban bread, and yellow mustard, alongside a smaller round Disco Cubano version. Sabor Cubano's official pre-launch menu lists the Habanero Cuban at $13.99, the Bistec Guajiro steak sandwich at $14.99, and the Croquetazo pan con croqueta at $12.99, according to the restaurant's own posted pricing.
Beyond sandwiches, the restaurant serves heartier Cuban preparations built around chicken, top steak, and slow-cooked pork shoulder, plus dishes like Ropa Vieja, made with shredded flank steak braised in tomato sauce with onions, bell peppers, garlic, and dry white wine. Diners can also order Arroz Congri, the Cuban black beans and rice cooked together in a spiced broth, Papas Rellenas stuffed with mashed potatoes, ground beef, and cheese, and Pargo Frito, a whole fried red snapper seasoned with garlic and citrus. Maduros and tostones round out the sides, and the menu even includes a Cuban pizza built on a family-recipe dough with a dozen classic add-ons, including ham, pepperoni, or ham and pineapple combinations.
Dessert options include Flanato Artesenal, tres leches, dulce de leche, mini pies, and coquitos, while drinks span fresh juices, shakes, tea, sodas, and three versions of Cuban coffee. Once the restaurant secures a liquor license, owners expect to add island drinks and classic cocktails to the lineup. That process is not simple: the City of St. Louis's Excise Division requires restaurants seeking a full retail liquor license to complete a 45-day petition window, gathering signature approvals from at least 51% of property owners and registered occupants within a defined neighborhood radius, according to city regulations.
A Growing Cluster on the Gravois Corridor
Sabor Cubano seats 20 people in its dining room and up to 28 at the bar, with Dyannalis Hernandez Herrera overseeing the front of the house alongside Sabiel Garcia. Owners are already planning to expand into an adjacent dining room, a move expected to nearly double available seating, though a timeline for that expansion has not been set. Herrera has also said she plans to add special offerings down the road as the restaurant settles in.
The restaurant's arrival adds to a small but notable wave of new Latin American food businesses along Gravois Avenue. Just a block away at 6915 Gravois, family-owned Chilean empanada shop PuffPies opened in late July and sold out on its debut day, a story Hoodline covered at the time. That earlier reporting described the corridor as home to a mini-wave of international casual eateries revitalizing spaces once held by legacy neighborhood restaurants, including the very Apollonia space Sabor Cubano now occupies — a Greek restaurant that Good Food St. Louis reported was run by owner Behar Mehmeti for 16 years before closing in 2025.
Part of a Broader Demographic Shift
The new restaurant lands amid fast-moving demographic change across the region. Census data analyzed by Saint Louis University demographers and reported by St. Louis Public Radio found the St. Louis metro area's foreign-born population grew 23.2% between 2022 and 2023, the fastest percentage growth among the nation's 30 largest metro areas. The same analysis found the region's Latino population grew 14.4% over the same period, the fourth-highest growth rate among major U.S. metros.
That growth stands in contrast to Boulevard Heights itself, where 2020 Census figures cited by St. Louis City Talk put the neighborhood's Hispanic or Latino population at just 3% of its 8,690 residents. The neighborhood now falls within Ward 2 following the city's 2021 redistricting that cut the Board of Aldermen from 28 wards to 14, a district with a 6.3% Hispanic population, according to Lewis Rice's analysis of the change.
Sabor Cubano also joins an established Cuban dining scene in St. Louis. Havana's Cuisine, founded by Cuban immigrant Tamara Landeiro in 2019, relocated to the Central West End in early 2025 and earned its fifth consecutive St. Louis Top 100 Restaurant recognition this year, per Sauce Magazine's coverage. South City diners with a taste for Caribbean flavors have also long turned to Mayo Ketchup in Lafayette Square, which has served plantain-based jibaritos and pressed Cubano sandwiches since 2019.
Visiting Sabor Cubano
Sabor Cubano is open Tuesday through Sunday from 9 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., with Monday hours from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. The restaurant can be reached at 314-448-7318 for those looking to place orders or ask about the menu.
