Fernando and Odalis gave up medicine to open a restaurant in Cienfuegos
14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, Cienfuegos, 22 September 2024 – Odalis, a 55-year-old from Cienfuegos, has not worked as a surgeon for eight years. Instead, she started a restaurant with her husband, Fernando, also a doctor. “When I returned from my mission in Africa, I knew very well that I had to invest the money in some way. That’s when we opened a cafeteria, and now it also offers lunches and dinners at an affordable price,” this veteran doctor tells 14ymedio. Many, she says, called them crazy, including bank officials, who were reluctant to grant them a loan.
Like them, there are many Cienfuegos residents who, tired of the salary conditions in the service of the State, try their luck in the private sector, mainly in establishments dedicated to commerce and gastronomy, such as those that proliferate around the Prado or the Bulevar.
Odalis explains how she left the healthcare center where she worked. “Initially, I stayed at the hospital, while we were running the cafeteria, with great effort. When the business was thriving, my own co-workers made war on me, to the point that I asked for leave.” The doctor asserts, “It was not worth sacrificing myself for a miserable salary while also having envious glances turned on me.”
While speaking to this newspaper in her restaurant, she pauses to take an order from a customer who comes in. “This man comes every day from Pastorita to get his evening meal,” she says, boasting about the quality of the food they serve.
“It is a huge challenge to keep this place well stocked”
Her husband Fernando has just arrived with some groceries and joins the conversation. “It is a huge challenge to keep this place well stocked,” he says as he sits down. He has gone through most of the private shops in the city looking for “meats” with great difficulty. “With this situation of price ca
