A Cuban bakery in Florida has become the target of a conservative boycott campaign this week after it hosted a visit from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and a Democratic congressional candidate.
Jeffries and Eliott Rodriguez, who is running in Florida’s 27th Congressional District, went to the bakery in Pinecrest, a Miami suburb, on Friday, meeting with one of the family business’s owners in what appeared to be a relatively routine campaign stop.
Rodriguez, who is Cuban-American, posted a video on social media of the visit while standing alongside CAO Bakery co-owner Yvette Cao. In the footage, Cao gives Jeffries a “care package” of pastries.
Jeffries thanked her for hosting them and thanked Rodriguez for his commitment to “making this community, making Florida and making the country more affordable.”
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But the reception ignited a firestorm of backlash from the Miami Cuban community, many of whom accused the bakery of supporting “socialism” by hosting the Democrats — a touchy subject among the community of Cuban exiles who escaped the island nation’s communist government.
Several angry locals left comments on Rodriguez’s video stating they’d no longer patronize the business, while supporters said they’d exclusively purchase Cuban pastries from the bakery.
“I was a loyal Saturday morning customer until now,” wrote one commenter. “I will never set foot in any of your stores again.”
The backlash prompted an apology from Cao, who posted on the bakery’s Instagram account: “To the Cao community, I’ve read your messages and I understand why Friday hurts.”
She said hosting the candidates was not an endorsement.
“Cao stands with our Cuban American community for a free Cuba and condemns Socialism. That will never change,” she wrote.
Cao explained that Rodriguez’s campaign contacted the bakery the day before asking if they could stop by and greet the community.
“As a business, we don’t discriminate based on political views, but at the same time, I didn’t know it would turn into a press conference,” she said, adding: “Our family is here because of what our parents and grandparents gave up to be here. We know what they left behind, and everything we’ve built comes from the freedom this country gave us.”
Rodriguez’s opponent, Rep. María Elvira Salazar, posted about the controversy on X.
“Eliott Rodriguez brought the man who wants to lead the socialists in Congress into a Cuban bakery in Miami and, in one move, showed just how little he knows this community,” she wrote.
“He and his socialist friends turned a Cuban small business into a political prop and left the business dealing with the fallout. It is an insult to parade this ideology through a community built by survivors of socialism and embrace the very people who champion it.”
Polls have consistently shown there’s strong support for President Donald Trump in the Florida Cuban community.
That support handed Trump Miami-Dade County in the 2024 presidential election — the first time that it had flipped red since 1988.
Cuban restaurants and bakeries have long been places for politicians to campaign in Florida.
In June 2023, President Donald Trump stopped by Versailles in Little Havana. He was greeted by crowds of supporters who sang “Happy Birthday” to him.
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