Cuban Officials Shut Down Cabaret That Was Country’s ‘Largest Private Business’

“[When] President Raúl Castro urged Cubans to increase productivity by starting small businesses, [baritone Ulises] Aquino answered the call. He cleaned up a vacant, trash-strewn lot in Havana and built a restaurant and cabaret, El Cabildo, where his Opera of the Street could finally have a home. It was a big hit. And true to socialist principles, Aquino split earnings among his 130 employees, held free children’s theater on weekends and kept his prices low. But it didn’t last a year.”