Privatization: Who is the lucky one who, without bidding, has obtained the pizzeria

San José de las Lajas (Mayabeque)/These days it is enough to stop for a few minutes on the corner where the Verona pizzeria stands, right on the boulevard of San José de las Lajas, to see why the place has become a must-see conversation. Pedestrians slow their pace in front of the dark glass doors, some trying to peer inside without success and others pointing at freshly scraped columns or construction materials coming in and out. In a city where few things remain secret, the mystery surrounding the fate of the establishment has ended up fueling more rumors than certainties.

Advertising images of pizzas, spaghetti and salads continue to crown the façade like a suspended promise. From the sidewalk, however, there is no movement that would allow us to know how the work is progressing. The windows reflect the clouds, the bicycles crossing the street and the curious people who try to guess what is happening behind those doors closed for months.

What no one remembers is seeing an official announcement calling for a tender to hand over the business to a private administrator. Nor were the conditions, requirements to participate or the procedure by which the future tenant would be chosen published. This absence of information is precisely what most worries Lajeros.

The most repeated rumor assures that Verona will end up in the hands of a person closely linked to the political power of the province. No one offers conclusive evidence, but there are few official explanations to dispel suspicions either. In a town where administrative processes are usually known through portal comments rather than public statements, institutional silence has left room for all kinds of speculation.

“Last year I applied for the pizzeria to lease in every possible way,” he tells 14ymedio an entrepreneur who prefers anonymity and who for years has observed the commercial potential of the property, located in one of the busiest points of the provincial capital. “I sent letters to the Party, I had offices with officials of the Government and the Commerce and Gastronomy Company itself. I also moved some influences as far as I could, but they told me not to continue insisting, because the granting of that space already had a name and surname.”

His conclusion comes accompanied by a resigned smile. “Once again I have verified that things in Cuba are distributed up there” and the phrase is accompanied by a gesture with the index finger pointing to the sky.

Meanwhile, the renovation work on the property is progressing at full speed. More than one neighbor has jumped when they hear the roar of pieces of ceiling or masonry falling onto the interior floor. The structure needed urgent intervention after years of deterioration, but the pace of repair fuels the impression that the new administrators are in a hurry and have many resources, in a country where getting even a bag of cement has become a headache.

Marcelo worked there for years and still stops by the portal almost every day. At 62 years old, he perfectly remembers the meeting in which they were informed of the temporary closure.

“They told us that we were going to close for a few months to make a capital repair to the pizzeria. They promised us that we would return soon, but they immediately began to offer us relocation in agriculture and in Community Services. That gave me a very bad feeling because, in practice, they were throwing us out without saying it.”

“Maybe they will leave it as a pizzeria or put a dollar store there, who knows maybe even a MSME that has its own warehouse. The only thing that is certain is that the old employees will not return”

The man did not accept any of those alternatives. “Once we were left without a salary, the State completely ignored us. There was no one to complain to and the union did not support us. Supposedly we could go plant tomatoes or collect garbage. You didn’t need to be a university student to realize that this was going to be a long time.”

Today he survives as a self-employed worker and does not expect to return to Verona. “Maybe they will leave it as a pizzeria or put a dollar store there, who knows maybe even a MSME that has its own warehouse. The only thing that is certain is that the old employees will not return.”

From time to time, neighbors say, a man arrives in a modern car, enters the property for a few minutes and comes out again without further explanation. The scene repeats itself frequently enough to fuel new stories.

A very thin young man, who is waiting for customers leaning on the seat of his pedicab, looks at the façade with a mixture of nostalgia and skepticism.

“The service was slow, the pizzas often barely had cheese and the spaghetti arrived cold. There was a lack of soft drinks, beer and even water to drink. But it was the pizzeria for people with less money. You could sit on those uncomfortable stools and cheat your hunger.”

He grew up asking his parents for seven pesos to buy a pizza after school. That’s why he’s convinced that when it reopens under private management, the main change won’t be the furniture or fresh paint.

“Every time a state establishment passes into private hands the prices take off. Already in the last stage of Gastronomy they had risen several times, imagine now. I hope they improve the quality, because it needs to be done, but I fear that the majority of ordinary people will once again stare from the sidewalk.”

In San José de las Lajas no one disputes that Verona needed a new life. What many question is that this rebirth seems to have been cooked behind glasses as dark as the process itself that will decide who will end up serving the first pizza of the new stage.