The Journal
Experiences
Every Castro Canes product began somewhere. This is where those stories live.
Not every chapter begins in the shop. Some begin beside the ocean. Some begin around a dinner table. Others begin inside a beehive. Castro Canes isn’t simply a collection of products — it’s a growing archive of moments, collaborations, craftsmanship, and community.
Chapter One
ODR Studio · New Jersey
It began with a truck full of cane.
A vintage pickup parked outside the studio, its bed loaded with sugarcane cut that morning. A press, a folding table, a stack of limes, and a sign drawn by hand because there hadn’t been time to make a real one.
There was no shop yet. No stand, no plan beyond pressing cane until it ran out. It ran out. Everything that followed — every pop-up, every collaboration, every jar and bottle — starts here.
The First Pour
Everything we needed fit in one truck.
October 2024. Cane, limes, ginger, ice, and a hand-drawn sign taped to the tailgate.
Chapter Two
Phase Surf
The afternoon the cane got pressed.
Fresh sugarcane. Lime. Ginger. Boards drying outside. Neighbors stopping by. The kind of afternoon that happens because someone decided to press cane instead of staying home.
It wasn’t planned as an event. It became one anyway — a handful of people, a single press, and a line that formed on its own. If the truck proved it could work, this was the day it started to feel inevitable.
Explore Gallery ↓The Gallery
An afternoon on the block.
Cane off the truck, a press running all day, and a street that slowly filled up.
Chapter Three
The Pho Evening
A table, some steam, and no reason to rush.
One night the sugarcane press rested and the stockpot took its place. Broth that had been going since morning. Herbs on the table. Steam on every face. Conversation that slowed the longer it went.
Everything was assembled one bowl at a time. Rice noodles first, then the beef — raw, sliced thin, cooked only by the broth poured over it.
There was no line to move along, no ticket rail, no rush. Just a person making one bowl, then the next, for as long as people kept showing up.
It felt more like meditation than a restaurant.The Pho Evening · Rockaway
Two pots did all the work. One held the broth. The other held everything waiting its turn. Between them, steam filled the room until the windows went white.
Nobody was selling anything that night. People simply sat, and stayed — a reminder that the best part of a meal is rarely the food.
By the end of the night the pots were empty and nobody had checked the time.
See the Evening →Chapter Four
The Honey Harvest
This one keeps its own calendar. The bees decide when. We wait for the season, open the hives by hand, and take only what they can spare. Frame by frame, in Rockaway, the year turns into honey.
Chapter Five
Vietnam
Learning at the Source
Instead of learning Vietnamese cuisine from books, we traveled to Vietnam with our son Tommy to learn directly from the people who have been cooking these dishes for generations.
The Apprenticeship
We went where the food is from.
From local kitchens to professional instruction, we studied technique, ingredients, and the culture surrounding the food — not just the recipes.
Our Training
Studied along the way.
Every pop-up, recipe, and meal we serve is shaped by years of travel, practice, and formal training. These certifications represent only part of that journey.
-
Provincial Table
-
Apron Up Cooking Class
-
Hong Hoai’s · Hanoi
-
Rose Kitchen · Hanoi
-
Changkran Khmer
The best lessons weren’t printed on the certificates. They happened around the table.Hanoi · 2025
Chapter Six
Future Chapters
Castro Canes grows through the people it works alongside. Every collaboration eventually becomes another chapter here. This is the shape of it so far — and the room we’re leaving for what’s next.
Where it started
ODR Studio
A vintage pickup, a bed full of cane, and a hand-drawn sign in a New Jersey parking lot. The first pour, and the reason for all of it.
The blueprint
Phase Surf
A surf shop, a sugarcane press, and an afternoon that turned into everything else. The collaboration that showed us what this could be.
Ongoing
Pop-Ups & Markets
Evenings like the pho table — gatherings built around a single dish, a shared harvest, or a limited release.
In conversation
Coffee Shops & Restaurants
Rooms that already understand hospitality, honey, and slow mornings. A natural place for the next pour.
On the horizon
Creative Studios
Makers, photographers, and designers who see the story the same way we do — and help tell it.
Yet to be written
Your Chapter
A space intentionally left open. If there’s a table worth setting, we’d like to hear about it.
From the Archive
Castro Canes Bamboo Chopsticks
These chopsticks were created for one of our earliest Castro Canes gatherings. They remain part of the story.
Every object carries a memory. Some eventually return.
The Road Ahead
Where the next chapter takes root.
Not every story ends where it begins. Beyond Rockaway, another home is taking shape on fifty acres in the Dominican Republic.
There are grass-fed cattle moving through open pasture, rows of passion fruit climbing in the sun, cacao trees beginning to mature, and a river that cuts quietly through the land.
This won’t become a resort or a showroom. It will be a working place where we grow, harvest, cook, learn, and continue building Castro Canes from the ground up.
The same philosophy that started with one sugarcane press in New York is growing into something much larger — without losing what made it special in the first place.
We’re only getting started.
New harvests, new collaborations, new evenings worth remembering. Be there for the next chapter before it’s written.