In this episode, Thea talks with Ivette Naranjo, the dynamic entrepreneur who opened Cafeina, the first bar in Wynwood. Thea and Ivette look back on the early days as the first operators in Wynwood, Thea opened the first restaurant in 2008 and Ivette opened the first bar in 2009. They recall the quiet and desolation, “it was like operating on the moon.”
In 2002, Ivette bought a warehouse for her flooring company in Miami’s barren warehouse district. Her company, which she had formed at sixteen years old, sold flooring to schools, airports and other industrial buildings.
Faced with the looming financial crisis of 2008, Ivette made a quick decision to buy one of the newly available liquor licenses designated for the re-zoned district.
Ivette had no experience running or working in a bar. Confident in her own abilities to figure it out, she set about repurposing part of the warehouse and her parking lot into a garden, lounge, bar and art gallery. Cafeina, Wynwood’s first bar, opened in 2009. It has recently reopened with a new name- Selvatico.
Naranjo reflects on the work that went into converting a warehouse into a lounge, and how, undaunted, she jumped every hurdle in her way. Ivette reflects on the demands of running Cafeina at night and her flooring business during the day. Listen in to an intimate conversation between two pioneering entrepreneurs, the engines behind the first hospitality operations in Wynwood.
