Don Juan Cafe Restaurant

Don Juan is great! Unique authentic Puerto Rican cuisine. Service is slow, but it’s worth the wait. Huge portions, and very affordable. Meat is tender and falls off the bone. Make sure you get an empanada!!! Also try the homemade passion fruit juice.

Don Juan Café Restaurant is one of only two Latin restaurants in the Syracuse area that I am aware of. I am not including Mexican cuisine as it is a different creature.
This simple, plain looking establishment serves Puerto Rican cuisine. All of the food, with the exception of sandwiches, are prepared in advance and served cafeteria style. There is ample eat-​in space and of course, everything is available for takeout. They have a limited selection of foods which include roast pork, steak and onions, beef stew, roast chicken, pepper steak, fried pork, fried chicken, yellow rice, beans, and tostones. The sandwiches offered included a Cuban, ham roast pork and others. You can buy a meal in two sizes: small or large. Generally the small costs $ 6.50 and the large is about $ 9.50. Their small is quite large.
The food is prepared and served by an employee from a steam table. Each offering is made in small batches so, there is frequent turnover of the offerings. You probably won’t ever get a ruined meal because it sat in a steam table for hours. There was a constant stream of food coming out of the kitchen re-​stocking the front of the house for the steady flow of customers.
I had the small roast pork with yellow rice and peas along with beans with an empanada and a soda which cost $ 9.50 with tax. The roast pork was presented as nice large juicy chunks of meat next to a generous portion of yellow rice and peas which I topped with beans. The meat was flavorful, tender, hot and fresh and quite satisfying. The yellow rice went well mixed with the beans. The food was nicely salted and the meat flavored with garlic. As I dined late in the day, I got an empanada which had probably been prepared well in advance and kept in a warming case. It wasn’t stellar. If it had been fresh, I speculate it would have been better. The quantity of beef filling (ground beef) was rather sparse and plain.
While they don’t serve many typical Puerto Rican staples like mofongo, various seafood, alcapurria, pasteles, batidos, tembleque, etc… There is enough here to get my Latin food fix in Syracuse, although, you won’t be mystically transported to PR… or even the El Bronx.