Gjinovefa “Gina” Luari was 24 when she launched her first restaurant in a closed breakfast place in Hartford’s South End.
With ceiling-mounted swinging chairs; bright and playful food display; a diverse and enthusiastic staff, the Place 2 Be was a stylish, Millennial-inspired take on food as an experience one could share on social media.
Six years later, Luari operates three restaurants and plans to shortly open five more. The budding empire is taking on a corporate structure and new headquarters in a roughly 4,000-square-foot former marketing space on Pratt Street in downtown Hartford.
Luari formed “The Statement Group Inc.” last August, to be a holding company for the various limited liability companies she is using to launch her restaurants. Luari announced the company’s formation this week, along with details foreshadowing the company’s explosive growth.
The company name dates to something Luari heard after opening her first restaurant. Someone said the establishment’s moniker was a statement rather than a name, Luari recalled.
“We were like: ‘Yeah, we wanted to make a statement; that’s why we called it The Place 2 Be,” Luari said.
Now, Luari’s statement is growing and carrying across state lines.
The Franklin Avenue Restaurant opened with just Luari, her mother – Marjana Luari – and two servers. Today, The Place 2 Be employs about 150 people. And that number will quickly double, and more, as new restaurants come online. It is one of the reasons Luari is working to open a corporate office at 57 Pratt St.
Distinguished chefs Maurice “Mo” Major and Xavier Santiago stayed through the transition as members of Statement’s executive team; Santiago as culinary director and Major as assistant culinary director.
Pratt Street renovations are still underway and it will be months yet before Statement occupies its new headquarters. It will serve as a staging point for Luari’s planned creation of a national restaurant firm. There human resources, finance and operations employees will be joined by branding, social media and marketing staff. The location will also host a test kitchen.
Luari said she has brokers hunting possible restaurant locations in Dallas, Houston, Miami and elsewhere. She has had an offer to open in Boston’s Seaport district.
“If we want to get to a national brand, we have to set up systems for a national operation,” Luari said of her recent organizational changes.
While Luari is thinking nationally, she’s acting locally, with three restaurants on track to open in Hartford this year. She’s hoping to foster the city’s “hospitality ecosystem,” to help restore vibrancy sapped through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hartford is reciprocating. Three of Luari’s landlords are accessing the city’s “Hart-Lift” program to help outfit new restaurants. The city dedicated $6 million of its federal American Rescue
Plan funds to a grant paying up to $150,000 per location to outfit new ground-floor retail and restaurants.
The grants go to landlords, who have to spend matching funds as well. It’s a dollar-per-dollar match downtown. In the neighborhoods, property owners must spend at least half as much as the grant program.
Luari has shown a lot of resilience this year. Her South End location closed on Jan. 20 for $300,000 in renovations and upgrades, just reopening on Monday. Her downtown Hartford restaurant was damaged heavily a month ago following a fire caused by a carelessly discarded cigarette, closing the restaurant and causing more than $100,000 in damages. Repairs are ongoing.
Even so, Luari’s efforts to open new restaurants are moving forward, including:
- The Place 2 Be, Basketball Hall of Fame, Springfield. Luari said she is simply waiting for a liquor license and anticipates opening within weeks.
- The Place 2 Be, 338 Elm St., New Haven. Luari said this project was set back by months due to unexpectedly challenging engineering efforts and approval processes due to its status as a historic building. Renovations will be completed this summer, but Luari said she might hold off opening until the fall influx of college students.
- Charred, a brick-oven pizzeria, 275 Pearl St., Hartford. Luari still aims to open a pizzeria in a former city fire house on Pearl Street but the timing is somewhat out of her control. The building is being renovated into 40 apartments, with ground-floor retail, by New York-based Wonder Works Construction. Wonder Works is getting assistance through the Hart-Lift Program to outfit the space, Luari said.
- Cantina, a restaurant featuring Central and South American cuisine, 900 Main St., Hartford (formerly home to Dish restaurant). Luari is targeting a 2022 opening but can’t be certain of a date. Her landlord, Lexington Partners, is renovating the space with help from the Hart-Lift grant.
- Raw, a raw bar seafood restaurant, 280 Trumbull St. Luari plans to open by June. Renovations are more than halfway completed, again where her landlord is accessing the Hart-Lift program for renovations.
