What does it take to put 26 chairs beside the walk-up window at White and Virginia streets? According to the paperwork the City of Key West reviewed on October 22, it takes the building's public laundromat, a rewritten ground floor and a parking request the lot cannot meet on its own.
The cafe's own website gives the address as "1026 White Street (M&M Laundry)," which tells you who came first in people's minds. Under the conditional-use request now in front of the city, M&M's space would become two retail or office units and a 449-square-foot room with 26 seats for Sandy's Cafe. For anyone in The Meadows whose morning includes a café con leche from that window, the proposal turns on an odd fact of the city code. A sandwich handed through a window needs no parking. Floor space set aside for eating it does.
The corner as it works today
Sandy's describes itself as a cafe "with two convenient walk-up windows," and its website lists hours of 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day. It sells the "Original Cuban Sandwich" along with the Cuban coffee that Keys Weekly once credited Sandy's baristas with mastering, from the cortadito to the café con leche.
The Santiago family owns the business. Its history page ties the cafe to a family tradition of Key West Cuban eateries, including Sandy's Restaurant, Two Brothers Café and El Cacique Restaurant. The Key West Citizen has reported that the family also owns the building.
The application describes the building plainly. It is a two-story mixed-use structure with a take-out restaurant, a retail space and a laundromat on the first floor, four apartments upstairs and ten parking spaces. It sits in the city's Historic Neighborhood Commercial district, HNC-1, where restaurants are conditional uses. According to the application, the take-out restaurant is a lawful nonconforming use. Adding a consumption area would turn it into a restaurant with on-site seating, and that expansion requires planning review.
What the plan rearranges
The request, Legistar file 26-5936, comes from Santiago Family Partnership, LTD. Its authorized agent is attorney Richard J. McChesney of Spottswood, Spottswood, Spottswood & Sterling, whose office is at 500 Fleming Street. The building would keep the same total floor area, 3,002 square feet. The application packet says no exterior changes are proposed, and the inside would be reallocated.
| Ground-floor use | As listed today | As proposed |
|---|---|---|
| Sandy's Cafe | Take-out, no consumption area | Take-out plus 449 sq. ft. with 26 seats |
| Laundromat | 1,300 sq. ft. | Replaced |
| Retail/office | One 429 sq. ft. space | Two new units of 412 sq. ft. each, plus the 429 sq. ft. unit, listed as a barber shop |
| Apartments upstairs | Four | Four |
The way service works would stay the same. "Customers are expected to order at the counter as they do today, pick up their order when ready and find available seating on their own," the application says. It also says no additional employees are expected because there is no table service. In practice, the line at the window would gain a place to sit down.
Why a 449-square-foot seating room needs ten parking spaces
The application sets out the parking the code requires for each use, before and after.
Under the current layout:
- The 1,300-square-foot laundromat, at one space per 300 square feet, needs 4.3 spaces.
- The take-out restaurant needs zero, because the requirement is one space per 45 square feet of consumption area and it has none.
- The 429-square-foot retail space needs 1.42.
- The four apartments need one each, for 4.
- The total of 9.7 rounds up to 10, and the lot has 10.
The current building meets its parking requirement exactly. The restaurant, the busiest use on the corner, counts for nothing because the code ties restaurant parking to consumption area. Under the proposal, the 449-square-foot seating room alone needs 9.9 spaces, almost as many as the whole building needs today. The two new 412-square-foot units need 1.3 each, the barber shop unit needs 1.4 and the apartments still need 4. The new total is 17.9, which rounds to 18, on a lot with 10.
Swapping the laundromat's 4.3 spaces for the seating room's 9.9 accounts for most of that gap. According to the Citizen Portal summary of the review meeting, a separate parking-variance application has been filed to cover it.
What the review committee raised on October 22
The city's Development Review Committee took up the request at its October 22 meeting, chaired by city planner Taylor Brown. Citizen Portal's AI-generated account of the meeting video records the main comments:
- Senior planner Jim Siegel described the project as the conversion of a laundromat to offices and seating. He noted that the business predates the HNC-1 district and is legally nonconforming.
- Doug Bridal raised a problem he called common across the city, small commercial lots that back onto the road. He cited safety concerns for pedestrians and bicyclists and asked for a meeting across city departments.
- Ryan Stachurski asked for bicycle parking and mentioned an active city project to improve pedestrian access at the nearby intersection.
- Matt Wellman of Utilities said impact fees apply to the added seats and that addresses will need cleanup because of the new units.
- Daniela Salome reminded the applicant that any exterior change requires architectural review.
Committee members and staff also asked whether the transportation and parking model fits Key West's dense, walkable streets. The same summary says staff agreed to bring the relevant reviewers into follow-up. According to that account, McChesney said he would continue looking for ways to steer pedestrian crossings away from Virginia Street. When a stairwell move came up for accessibility, he said the existing stair is grandfathered egress and that moving it could cost parking.
Nearly every comment came back to the same few feet of pavement where cars back out toward White Street. The seating room adds to the parking requirement, and the cars that come with it would use those same few feet.
Where it goes from here
According to the Citizen Portal summary, McChesney apologized for not having an updated survey, said a revised survey and site plan were expected the following week, and proposed meeting with city departments before Planning Board review. The Planning Board decides the request next. Under the criteria quoted in the packet, a conditional use is allowed only where it can be accommodated "without generating adverse impacts on properties and land uses within the immediate vicinity," and the board can attach specific conditions to an approval. Those conditions could set things like bike racks, where cars turn and where people cross, so they would shape how the corner works day to day as much as the 26 chairs would.
On White Street, Fausto's centennial showed how much of The Meadows depends on the daily errand, and the Walk on White art walk shows the street on its busiest night. At 1026 White Street, the daily errand is a coffee at the window, and what happens next depends on the parking table in the city file.
If you own a home near White Street and want to know how changes like this one play into its value, SoldByStacy offers a complimentary home valuation that weighs the corner as closely as the house. Request a Complimentary Home Valuation, and Stacy will walk you through it over coffee.
