La Feria Tapas has won the 2012
Hatch Detroit contest and plans to use the prize money to help speed along its opening next spring.
La Feria Tapas, a Spanish-style tapas restaurant, is turning a vacant, non-descript building at 4130 Cass into a showpiece near the rapidly developing intersection of Cass Avenue and Willis Street. The stretch of Cass between Alexandrine and Canfield streets is quickly becoming a commercial hub in Midtown.
Five years ago it was best known as the home to
Avalon International Breads but now it houses a number of other boutique business, such as
Slows To Go and
Curl Up & Dye, and several other newly renovated commercial spaces. The location helped make the decision easy for the co-founding trio of Pilar Baron-Hidalgo, Naomi Khalil and Elias Khalil.
"In my mind it's a no-brainer," Elias Khalil says, adding Detroit's lack of Spanish-style tapas restaurants has created a void in the market. "If you go to any other big city there are a lot of them. Here it's a major missing link."
La Feria Tapas plans to use the $50,000 first place prize from Hatch Detroit to pay for a large chunk of the kitchen equipment. The trio of partners have been working on the restaurant since January and expect to open in April.
Source: Elias Khalil, co-owner of La Feria Tapas
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
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