In 1961, Cuban exile René Sedano opened the original Sedano’s store, a 4,000-square-foot (370 m2) bodega, in Hialeah, Florida. In 1962, a fellow Cuban exile, Armando Guerra Sr., acquired the store from Sedano and kept the name. After the Castro revolution, which culminated in 1959, Guerra, a successful banker and grocer in Cuba, exiled to Miami in 1961. In 1971, he encouraged Manuel  “Manolo” Herrán, who had married his niece, to move to Miami from Atlanta, Georgia, and assist with Sedano’s operations. Herrán, a native of Spain, had moved to Sancti Spíritus, Cuba, as a teenager with his parents and siblings to escape Franco’s regime. In 1967, at the age of 28, he fled Cuba and communism with his wife Nyria and their young family. They first landed in Atlanta. Upon moving to Miami, the Guerra and Herrán families began working together to grow the supermarket business. Their mission was to provide immigrants like themselves with the authentic flavors of their homeland.