The closing this week of Café Tropical, a nearly 50-year-old Cuban restaurant in Silver Lake, had less to do with small business struggles amid demographic changes and more to do with a family dispute over financing, according to court documents reviewed by The Times.
The closure of the neighborhood staple was announced with a note in its window informing customers that the last day of service was Friday.
Owner Daniel Navarro had previously spoken about the difficulties of running a restaurant and being a small business owner in Silver Lake. In interviews, he said that he had tried to evolve with the times and that the COVID pandemic also affected business.
But court documents reviewed by The Times show that the restaurant's closure may be related to a simmering family dispute over the restaurant, which Navarro purchased in 2019. Navarro has not paid his mother more than $350,000 he owes her in related to a lawsuit she filed against him.
A person familiar with the business who was not authorized to speak on the record confirmed that the closure was due to a family dispute.
Navarro's mother, Gladys Navarro, sued her son in 2022, alleging that he illicitly used money from the family business to finance Café Tropical.
Daniel Navarro, his mother and his sister, Natalie Navarro, owned El Cochinito, another Cuban restaurant in Silver Lake that has been in the family since Navarro's grandmother opened it in 1988.
In January 2019, Navarro informed his mother and sister that he wanted to buy Café Tropical, on Sunset Boulevard, according to the lawsuit. Her mother and his sister told her they wanted her to run it as an independent business.
“Gladys and Natalie made it clear to Daniel that they did not want Café Tropical Bakery to be owned or operated by El Cochinito, nor merged or mixed in any way with El Cochinito or its assets,” the lawsuit reads. “Daniel acknowledged to his mother and his sister that he would not own or operate Café Tropical through El Cochinito.”
However, the two discovered later that year that Navarro had taken out loans for the new company and used money from the shared family business to pay them back, according to the lawsuit.
Navarro's actions caused El Cochinito to incur debts of more than $700,000, his mother claims in the lawsuit.
Gladys Navarro did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday. Neither did her lawyer.
The lawsuit claims that in addition to opening Café Tropical, Navarro used money from his El Cochinito business to open Bolita, a bar in East Hollywood.
“Daniel did not discuss the decision to open Bolita, nor did he receive authority or consent from Gladys and Natalie to do so,” court documents show.
A letter from Gladys Navarro's attorney to her son in April 2022 states that Daniel Navarro, along with a business partner, Jonathan Rubinstein, who is also a defendant in the lawsuit, must account for $2.5 million they had spent or transferred from company to company.
The parties agreed to a settlement in May in which Navarro would pay his mother $350,000 and, in exchange, she and her sister would transfer their shares in the company to Navarro, according to court documents. But Navarro missed the July payment date.
A judge on Wednesday ordered Navarro to pay his mother $366,000. He closed Café Tropical and El Cochinito the day before. Bar Bolita announced Wednesday that it would also close permanently.
Daniel Navarro and Natalie Navarro did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday.
In addition to the family dispute, Café Tropical received another lawsuit alleging that the restaurant failed to pay more than $38,000 in rent over the past year.
The restaurant's monthly rent was about $17,400, according to the lawsuit filed last month by Mangos Worldwide LLC.
Mangos Worldwide served Café Tropical with a “Notice to Pay Rent or Surrender of Possession” on Nov. 11, which required the restaurant to pay the rent owed or move out of the building three days after receiving the notice, the lawsuit says.
Café Tropical did not pay back rent and did not move out, the landlord claimed in the lawsuit, which was filed Nov. 17.
Times staff writer Lucas Kwan Peterson contributed to this report.
