After Helene washed away its food truck, Cuban restaurant finds permanent home
By Shelly Garzon
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ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WLOS) — Nearly two years after Helene washed away its food truck, prep kitchen and neighboring bar, an Asheville restaurant is beginning a new chapter in the same River Arts District where its story started.
Guajiro Cuban Comfort Food has opened its new brick-and-mortar restaurant inside the historic Asheville Cotton Mill, marking a homecoming years in the making for the family behind the business.
For co-owner and chef Joel Morales, being back in a kitchen also means returning to something he has known for much of his life.
“I started cooking alongside family and friends when I was 18. I’ve been cooking for a long time,” Morales said.
But getting to cook inside a permanent Guajiro restaurant was never guaranteed.
In Sept. 2024, Helene devastated parts of Asheville’s River Arts District. Guajiro’s food truck, prep kitchen and neighboring bar were in the path of the storm.
In the immediate aftermath, widespread communication outages left Morales unsure of what had happened to the business.
“I didn’t know the magnitude of the damage because the cell phone service was down. There was no way to communicate with each other. It wasn’t until two days later that I found out we lost everything,” Morales said.
What followed was not a quick rebuild.
Before contractors could begin transforming the space, the team spent months clearing mud and debris from the Asheville Cotton Mill by hand.
“Helene came one day, you know, knocked us down. We spent months cleaning up this building by hand, getting it to the point where we could have contractors come in here,” co-owner Christian Barroso said.
As work continued on the building, Guajiro found a way to keep serving customers. The team secured another food truck and established a temporary home at Hi-Wire Brewing in Biltmore Village.
The food truck kept the business moving, but Barroso said a permanent space had always been the dream.
That goal has now become a reality inside the same historic building the team helped clean out following the storm.
For Morales, the new restaurant represents more than replacing what was lost.
“It’s like a story that shows what we’re capable of. There were difficult times because bad things happened, like the loss of our business and the rebuilding, but we’re so excited to be back. We’re grateful to the Asheville community and our customers that have always supported us,” Morales said.
The opening also comes during Hispanic Heritage Month, which runs from Sept. 15 through Oct. 15.
At Guajiro, that heritage is reflected throughout the restaurant and in a menu built around Cuban food and traditions.
The restaurant is opening in phases as the team settles into its permanent space.
For the people behind Guajiro, opening the doors follows roughly four years of building the business through food trucks, followed by the destruction caused by Helene and nearly two years of recovery.
Now, after years of serving customers from food trucks and rebuilding from a storm that threatened the future of the business, Guajiro has something it did not have before Helene: a permanent home in the River Arts District.
A new kitchen, a permanent home and a family’s dream coming to life.
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