Sandwich-driven ‘love letter to Tampa’ happens this Sunday at L.P.C.X. Cafe

Tampa’s L.P.C.X. Cafe is already one of the best low-key ways to experience Colombian food and culture, but this weekend two local chefs—Hassan Lewis and Guillermo Quezada, who’ve both cooked at Rooster & the Till under Michelin-Bib chef Ferrell Alvarez—have curated a sandwich menu as a love letter to their adopted hometown of Tampa, Florida.

The guys, products of Leto’s culinary arts program, have prepared a chorizo-beef blend “Don Chimi” with fried cheese, guava, and chimichurri cabbage, plus their takes on banh mi, and two different katsu sandwiches featuring Daliana Conti’s Rising Sol milk bread.

L.P.C.X. will handle drinks and coffees while Janelly Vintage Cakes does sweets.

Lewis grew up in Tampa and has watched the city change. He told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay  that, “It feels as if I grew up with the city.”

Born in the Dominican Republic, Quezada came to the U.S. when he was six. It was a culture shock, he told CL, but meeting Lewis in high school led to a bond built around the kitchen and their other shared interests. They’ve been talking about doing an event like this since they were teenagers.

Quezada made Lewis the “don chimi” in January, and says they’ve since spent countless of hours since then making changes and adding a trio of “really dope handhelds” to the offering.

The pop-up is “about showing what we can do but also showing how much Tampa has taught us,” Lewis said. “The menu draws influence from many of the places we love to eat and what we’ve learned working in kitchens most of our professional lives. Our challenge was how do we pull from those influences and put our own spin on it.”

There’s no cover for the Better Together: 813 Day pop up happening at L.P.C.X. Cafe in Tampa on Sunday, Aug. 13.

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This article appears in Aug 3-9, 2023.