At the end of September, many gathered in Manhattan’s Loisaida to celebrate the opening of Café Colmado, the latest endeavor by Puerto Rican chef, advocate, and innovator, Manolo López. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, López moved to New York to study design at NYU. Ever since, he’s worn many hats, all of which culminate in his life-long mission of bridging aquí y allá. Marrying cuisine and activism, López uses food as a tool to bring people together, creating conversations between Puerto Rican communities on the island and across her diaspora. In 2014, López founded Mofon∙GO NY, a pop up restaurant that welcomed over 60,000 people every weekend in Brooklyn’s Smorgasburg food festival for four years. Through Mofon•GO, López and his team were able to invite guests to learn about Puerto Rican culture and history through the plate.

Three years later, in the wake of Hurricane María, López quickly went into full gear to organize on the ground to help in his people’s and island’s recovery. First setting up in La Esperanza, a park in Vieques, Puerto Rico, López and other chefs provided meals alongside doctors administering first aid for the affected community. Spending the next year and a half addressing food security on the island, López partnered with the Mark E. Curry Family Foundation to create the Cosa Nuestra Relief Fund, which aimed to help chefs and small business owners around Puerto Rico recover after María. Holding events across countries, from dinners to silent auctions, the Cosa Nuestra team raised over $55,000 that was distributed amongst 17 restaurants.

Chef, activist, filmmaker, producer, López and his work brings voices across the food, beverage, and arts industries through dinners, talks, and wellness offerings. Firmly rooted in community, we chatted with López about Café Colmado, what ignited his passion for food, and serving as a bridge for Puerto Ricans, Caribbeans, and Latinos everywhere.

Who ignited your love of the kitchen?

My mother, Margarita Cruz, was the one who got me into cooking. I was 13, a bit of a handful, dealing with all the changes of growing up and trying to act tough. But my mom always saw the kitchen as a place to bring people together, and she noticed my interest in cooking. At that time, we were living in Aguada, Puerto Rico, on the west side of the island. She saw an article about La Escuela Hotelera de San Juan and their new culinary program and immediately thought it could be good for me. She called the school every day for a month, explaining that she had an active kid who needed something to focus on. They kept saying no because I was too young, but she didn’t give up. After a month, they finally agreed, with the condition that she would have to take the classes with me and sign some paperwork. So she drove me three hours to San Juan and back for every class. Cooking taught me teamwork, following instructions, and how to work as part of a team. Her plan worked, and I owe my career to her determination and vision.

How would you best describe your philosophy and approach to cooking?

My approach to cooking has changed a lot over time. When I was starting out, I focused on mastering Eurocentric techniques and wanted to show my skills emulating that. But when I went back to Puerto Rico right after Hurricane María to help with food security, my perspective shifted. Seeing scarcity up close made me want to focus on cooking that brings people together. I stopped doing plated dinners and started doing meals that encourage conversation, are simple, and pay respect to our roots. The pilón I use for making mofongo is carved from the Guayacán trees that fell during the hurricane and is a reminder that food is about more than just what’s on the plate. And that is the conversation I want to share with food.

Mofongo: a meal we all know, love, and have our different spins on. One of your first creative endeavors was an ode to this Caribbean staple. What is Mofon•GO?

Mofon•GO was my first real project. I took mofongo, a dish we all know and love, and reimagined it as something you could eat on the go. Smorgasburg gave us a space to bring it to a big crowd, and it really took off. We ended up doing Mofon•GO pop-ups in Japan, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, and Puerto Rico. This project helped me connect with the Latino community in New York and led to other projects like Cosa Nuestra, Puentes, and Café Colmado. I stopped Mofon•GO in 2017 when I went back to Puerto Rico after Hurricane María, but I’m proud of what we did and how it shaped the work I’m doing now.

*Mofongo con carne frita by Will Langenberg*

In 2024, you opened Café Colmado in New York City's neighborhood of Loisaida. What inspired Café Colmado, and how did it come to be?

For the last five years, I’ve been creating content that explores Puerto Rico’s culture and issues through food. In 2023, I released Mi Puerto Rico: El Café, a documentary that looks at the coffee industry in Puerto Rico, where 90 percent of the coffee is imported, similar to the amount of food that is brought into the Island because of our colonial status and tight grip from the US. It won an award in New York and made it into ten film festivals. After that, some of my current business partners reached out to me about starting a coffee brand, but I only wanted to do it if it could be a community space too. I didn’t want it to be another generic Latino brand on shelves with no soul and then we found 286 Broome Street, renovated it, and opened Café Colmado in September 2024.The space takes inspiration from colmados in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and other places across Latin America. From the losas criolla you would see in Santurce to the plastic wrapped chairs that remind you of abuela’s house, and even the hand painted quotes you would find outside colmados in Santo Domingo, every detail is about celebrating where we come from. It is not just another stereotypical Latino spot; it is built to feel like home.

What do colmados as Puerto Rican cultural institutions mean to you?

My great-grandfather, Pancho Varela, had a colmado called La Cocorita in Aguada. My dad used to tell me stories about how it was more than just a store; it was a place where everyone would gather to play dominoes, gossip, and listen to the only radio in the neighborhood. When I’d visit colmados, it felt like a celebration with salsa music always blasting, neighbors catching up, and shelves filled with everything from food to construction supplies. It was based on trust, and you could even buy on credit if needed. That’s the feeling we wanted to bring to Café Colmado. Here in New York, things are often just transactions, but back home, colmados are about community, and I really miss that. Nostalgia is a big part of the experience at Café Colmado.

*Photo with Coffee Picker by Adrian Borges*

A beacon of Nuyorican culture, history, and identity, why did you choose Loisaida as the location for the café?

This was the first neighborhood I moved to when I left Puerto Rico over 15 years ago, and it’s where I had my real cultural awakening. I always say I learned what it really means to be Puerto Rican here in New York. Being away from the island made me appreciate it so much more, especially seeing how people here embrace it. That’s what inspired me to share our culture through food and build a bridge between our communities here and back home. And honestly, the fact that this place used to be an underground Chinese casino with a backyard just made it even better!

A son of the Diaspora whose work focuses on bridging the gaps between Puerto Rico and her communities in New York City and beyond, how do you navigate having one foot on the mainland, and one foot in her Diaspora?

I’ve been privileged to experience both worlds, and it’s shown me how little Puerto Ricans on the island and those in the Diaspora often know about each other. Growing up, I thought there was a big difference between Puerto Ricans and Nuyoricans. But after moving to New York and learning about things like the Young Lords, Fania and prominent Boricuas who fought for our people’s rights, I realized we’re really the same. One of my best friends, who’s Nuyorican, actually knew more about our island’s history than I did. Today, six million Puerto Ricans live outside the island, and many of them moved for the same reasons as the first Puerto Ricans who came here in the 50s and 60s. I don’t think anyone has the right to tell them that their experience doesn’t count. We may not all live on that 100x35 mile island, but we carry it with us wherever we go.

Across mediums, so much of your work is rooted in cultivating conversations between la gente de aquí y allá. Why is unity such an important pillar in your modus operandi?

In a world that often tries to divide us, we need to make an effort to understand and support each other to keep our culture alive. If we don’t stay united, we risk losing parts of who we are. I want to make sure that never happens.

Chef, filmmaker, and community organizer. As a multi-hyphenate, what are the intersections of food, film, and community that bring these different creative avenues together?

Food is a language everyone understands. I can connect with anyone in the world through it without saying a word. There are shared experiences in every culture and generation that bring us together. I remember tasting a mango for the first time when I was four, and that memory has stayed with me, just like certain foods stick with others. Food is about nourishing, it’s about community, it’s about life itself. Without it, we can’t survive; with it, we remember life’s biggest moments: weddings, births, deaths, and everything in between. It’s how I connect with the world, and I hope it helps people feel closer to me too.

Puerto Rico and her people have always been exemplary of will power, determination, grit, passion, and love: not a "floating island of garbage," as some have suggested. What does your country mean to you? For you, what does it mean to be Puerto Rican?

My island and its people, whether they’re on it or scattered around the world, are what make Puerto Rico extraordinary. It’s that unstoppable fire in our souls, the pride that swells when our basketball team beat Team USA in Athens, when Monica Puig won our first Olympic gold, or when Jasmine Camacho-Quinn took the gold in the 100 meter hurdles. Knowing we come from such a small island yet carry a spirit that can embrace the whole world is powerful. We’re one of the oldest colonies in existence, but we have never lost our identity. Quite the contrary,we’ve held onto it fiercely.

Being Puerto Rican means knowing you’re blessed. It means having a mix of blood that gives me access to my ancestors’ wisdom and guidance. It’s the one title I feel most proud of. Not chef, not entrepreneur, not filmmaker; just Puerto Rican. And for that, I am forever grateful. We have a saying back home: “Yo sería Borincano aunque naciera en la luna” and bet your bottom dollar that if we were there, Bad Bunny would be blasting everywhere. Pa' lante!

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