Into the Cerulean blue

The first thing we had to do was transform the restaurant from its cool, cold décor to something more "Cuban".  We were so excited, especially him.  In one afternoon, he painted over the old restaurant colors and covered everything up for the new reset.   I was at work when he sent me this and it made me laugh so hard.  If it wasn't for both of our sense of humors, we would of never of been able to do this together.    

This required a lot of research.     I'm talking about random drives into Brooklyn to get inspired or going to Home Depot almost every day and getting new swatches.   "Jefe" knew exactly what he wanted, it's like when something is at the tip of your tongue, but you can't word it?... he doesn't have that problem.  This particular day we were just trying to figure out what the color of the awning was going to be.   Almost every day I would get a text or a call from him asking what I thought of this or what if we do this.   I'd literally drop everything to go meet him and brainstorm.   "Chelly, look this up in your phone.   Can you text that to me?."  ..  "Chelly, do I look skinny?"  😂😂 (every day he asked me this)   We were both skinny, this all sounds like fun but we had many stressful days too, especially when we opened.  I did this for him all day and at times felt like his personal assistant.  It was fun being around his enthusiasm and it was this project that brought me back to life that summer.   

Our biggest mission was the paint color for the back wall of the restaurant.   It had to be blue, not just a regular blue but at Cerulean blue!  We had to go all the way to Bed - Stuy to find this.   We finally got it though; we found our two colors for Simply Cuban.

My job was to paint the little holes in the wall.

Cerulean Blue

My personal contribution that I'm very proud of was the reupholstery of the chairs.   That was also another mission, what color would we use?  I had to do about 60 chairs, carpel tunnel syndrome and all.   I spent a lot of time alone in there doing this because I was determined to get it done and I did.  I took upholstery classes one summer for the hell of it, it's amazing how life sets you up for things you have no idea about until they happen.   We saved a few hundred dollars.
   

   

Do you see that brown color on the wall?   This was our second try, the first try he hated the color so we had to do it over.    There was if, ands and or about it!  If he didn't like something it had to be changed, that's it.  As we went through this experience together we came across a lot of people that didn't like that and it made our lives more difficult.  Most artists don't settle on anything but what they want and he wasn't going to do that either.  

We spent the whole summer of 2015 inside that restaurant.   Some nights we just sat in the dark looking outside and him asking me if he could do this.   Did I think he could do it?  Did I think it would be successful?   I had no doubt in my mind that this little Cuban restaurant was going to be loved once we opened.   It took us 8 months to it but when it opened in October it was exactly as he envisioned it.   The aesthetic of the restaurant came out exactly how he wanted but what we didn't expect was how hard the "other stuff" was going to be.   That's a story for another time.     I'm going to keep this on a picture, day to day basis.

Besides me and him there was one other person who loved this little place as much as we did.  

Meet Mike

Mike the builder.  He helped open his first restaurant too.  He lived around the corner at the landlords house and he did maintenance whenever needed.   He came through for us in so many ways.  Me and him became wonderful friends in this 8 month process and I even took him to a Kid Rock concert.  He was there with me all the time while I upholstered the chairs and we would talk and listen to music for hours.   That would end when "Jefe" got there lol!  Chop Chop... back to work!

You see Mike is pointing at that wall.   He's pointed at that f*** wall because he had to repaint it like 40 times because the yellow just wasn't what Jefe wanted.   Nothing got done  half ass around there, if it didn't look right it had to go.   Let me just tell you that the painting of the inside of the restaurant was probably the most hectic out of everything.   This was our base to everything else we wanted to do inside there.  We finally got it though and then from there things just seem to flow creatively as we went on to different things.  We also had to change the counters and thank God for a good friend of his that came in and did it for us.  

His Buffalo Stance.  "No No, it doesn't look right.  Paint it Blue..".   

"Come on Jefe, I just painted it, doesn't it look nice?" ... Nope 

The same went for the outside of the restaurant.  We painted the old sign until we decided on the awning we were going to put up and what color was it going to be.   We needed someone to do our logo and we had lots of luck in that department too.  We met someone through someone that connected us to this guy who designed our vision on just a few tries.

Poor Mike had to paint those columns at least 3 times also.   Jefe had to buy him a lot of beer to keep him happy.   Mike is a good soul.    We were lucky to have him and after we were done it felt weird not having him in the restaurant all day.   I missed him.   I've lost touch with him but I drive past that apt building all the time and always look up to see if he's there.   He did so much for us there, we loved Mike.