Just over an hour after sending out a press release announcing the closure of Little Havana, chef and owner Alfredo Solis changed his mind and decided to keep the restaurant open indefinitely, he told DCist on Thursday afternoon.

Solis received some nudging from family members and some fans of Little Havana, who called him up after hearing about its closure and convinced him to keep it open, he says. “These are really important people to me, and they think that I should keep Little Havana open,” he says in Spanish.

Washington Post food critic Tom Sietsema, who recently named Little Havana number nine on a list of the year’s 10 best new restaurants, was one of the people who reached out to discuss the closure. In his review, Sietsema wrote that one of his recent dinners at Little Havana “saw nothing but home runs,” and said the restaurant was “the cheapest way to get to Cuba” from the District.

Solis said his conversation with the critic convinced him that the time was not right to close the restaurant.

Mitch Rubin, deputy editor of features at the Washington Post, says Sietsema did not intend to convince Solis to keep Little Havana open. “Tom did not have a conversation with Solis in which he tried to convince him not to close,” Rubin says. “Affecting his decision was never his intent.”

Still, Solis decided to give it another shot.

Little Havana first opened in August of last year on the same block of 14th Street NW that houses Mezcalero, a popular Mexican restaurant that also belongs to Solis. The Cuban restaurant is the chef’s first foray outside of Mexican food, and it hasn’t gone entirely as planned, he says. 

“I love the concept of Little Havana, I like it a lot,” he says. “But it hasn’t had the support of the community that it needs. It’s not busy enough.”

Still, he says he believes in the restaurant, and he’s going to try to make things work. “I made a very rash decision,” he says. “I just woke up one day and just decided [to close the restaurant].”

Solis had been planning to replace Little Havana with Anafre, a new Mexican restaurant that he’s had in his mind for a long time, he says. Now that Little Havana will stay open, Anafre’s opening will be delayed, but the chef says it’s still happening. In fact, he already has another location for the new restaurant, though he would only confirm that it will be “in D.C.”

Solis already owns two much-loved Mexican restaurants in the District, El Sol and Mezcalero, the latter of which is in the middle of expanding its space on 14th Street NW. The two restaurants have very similar menus, the dishes cooked mainly in the style of Mexico City.

Anafre (which is the Spanish word for a specific kind of clay oven) will be totally different. “It’s not going to sell tacos, I’m not going to make tortas or burritos,” Solis says.

Instead, Solis says, the food will be reminiscent of a backyard barbecue in Mexico—they’ll serve meats grilled over a coal flame and whole grilled fish. Instead of black beans, he’ll have frijoles charros, or pinto beans made with pork and usually chilies, too.

This post has been updated with comment from the Washington Post and to clarify the nature of Sietsema’s conversation with Solis.