Boyle Heights, CA – Josefina Lopez is single handily bringing much attention to BoyleHeights the neighborhood she grew up in. The award-winning playwright and screenwriter, the creator of the pop culture play and film, Real Women Have Curves, and the Founding Artistic Director of CASA 0101 Theater is about to give birth to yet another artistic milestone in her career, that of restaurateur. That’s right! Although primarily universally known as a writer, Josefina López is also a Culinary Chef who graduated with a Supreme Diploma from the renowned Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, France. She has also attended the New School of Cooking in Culver City where she studied cuisine with a California touch and making pastries, as well as the Gourmandise Cooking School in Santa Monica, where she studied chocolate making, bread making, pasta making and pastries. She has chosen Boyle Heights as the site for her Casa Fina Restaurant and Cantina a few blocks east of her theater Casa 0101.
Cinco de Mayo, Friday, May 5, 2017, the annual date reserved to celebrate Mexican-American culture, is the day when López will join forces with three other business partners and immigrants like herself, Executive Chef Augustin Alvarez and Restaurant Owners, Alonzo Ricardo and Emmanuel Deleage, for the Grand Opening of Casa Fina Restaurant & Cantina, a celebration of color, women and Mexican cuisine!
Chef Agustin Alvarez, Alonzo Ricardo, Josefina Lopez and Emmanuel Deleage
“My motto and mantra at Casa Fina Restaurant and Cantina is: ‘Life is a fiesta, so wear bright colors, eat great food and dance the night away’! Our mission at Casa Fina will be to provide an excellent experience through exceptional personal service to our patrons by serving them delicious fresh food, with a unique, warm and vibrant atmosphere that leaves them inspired and feeling alive. “We are part of the ‘Artistic Renaissance’ and a celebration of the best of Boyle Heights: it’s people, food and culture.”
Located located at 1842 E. First Street in Boyle Heights where the previous Serenata De Garibaldi Restaurant used to operate and where Lopez spent much time. “It inspired me to open Casa 0101 Theater, giving me confidence that having a theater in close proximity to a fine restaurant would be good for business for all involved”, adding “We plan to continue that synergy between Casa Fina and Casa 0101 Theater, and to provide entertainment as well, at the restaurant, for our customers.”
The festivities for the Grand Opening ofCasa Fina will kick off on Grand Opening Day, May 5, 2017 from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. with a free Fiesta and Official Ribbon Cutting Ceremony with the participation of CASA 0101 Theater Board Members and local dignitaries, as well as live entertainment, which will soon be announced. Members of the general public are invited to come to be part of the fun! Free Tacos, Aguas Frescas and Cake will be served to all in attendance.
The opening of Casa Fina also coincides with the 30th Anniversary of Josefina López’s beginning as a writer, when as a 17-year-old student at Los Angeles High School for the Arts she wrote her first play, Simply Maria, Or the American Dream, which launched her successful career as a renowned American playwright and screenwriter. A Pay-What-You-Can production of her play will be presented at CASA 0101 Theater from April 28 – May 14, 2017to celebrate the historic occasion. Casa Fina Restaurant and Cantina is located at 1842 E. First Street, Boyle Heights, CA 90033. House Specialties include: Ceviche, Fajitas, Molcajetes and Desserts. There will be art on the walls at the restaurant, including exhibits by artists and painters, such as: Juan Solis, Margaret Garcia and Emilia Garcia. The artwork will be a celebration of women and women painters, including Chicana/o artists, Latinos and women.
Josefina López elaborated by saying: “We were conscious to not contribute to the gentrification already plaguing Boyle Heights. My goal has always been to make theater accessible and now I want to make this restaurant accessible to the Boyle Heights community and all those outside of Boyle Heights who love authentic and fresh Mexican food. Yes, there are many Mexican restaurants in Boyle Heights already serving delicious Mexican food, but I promise the friendly atmosphere and fiestas will be the best at Casa Fina.”
Casa Fina’s daily specials will be co-created with Chef Augustin Alvarez’s special dishes and they will both invent Chicana/o cuisine. There will be wine tasting events so the Boyle Heights community can come try our wines and learn about Mexican wines from the Valley of Guadalupe in Baja, CA. In the future like Special Events like Speed Dating, Stand Up Comedy Nights, Open Mike Nights, Bohemian Nights, Karaoke Nights will create many opportunities for Boyle Heights residents to try their hand at performing in front of a crowd. I even want to have Paint Nights with our featured artists teaching people how to paint as they sip our wine. It’s going to be exciting and action packed in our Cantina!” Casa Fina Hours of Operation will be: Monday throughThursday from 11:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m. for both Lunch and Dinner; Fridayfrom 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 a.m.; Saturday from 8:00 a.m. – 2:00 a.m. including Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner and Sundays from 8:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m., including Sunday Brunch from 8:00 a.m. – 12 Noon. Casa Fina’s Cantina will be open from 10:00 p.m. – 2:00 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays with a limited Happy Hour Menu. The restaurant will feature daily specials. Valet Parking is available in the alley behind CASA FINA. The phone number is 323-604-9592. The E-mail is: casafinarestaurant@gmail.com Join the conversation with us at: www.facebook.com/casafinarestaurantandcantina www.instagram.com/CasaFinaFiesta Twitter: @CasaFinaFiesta
Online find Casa Fina at www.casafinarestaurant.com, to view our entire menu, including Act One – Breakfast, Act Two – Bontanas/Appetizers, Act Three – Entrées, Climax – Especialidades/Specialities, Resolution, Postre/Dessert and Beverages – Hot Drinks, Cold Drinks, Wine Margaritas, Draft Beers and Wine.
Josefina Lopez, will serve as Executive Chef. She was born in San Luis Potosi, Mexico and was brought to the U.S. by her parents when she was just five-years-old. She grew up in Boyle Heights with her seven siblings and didn’t discover she was undocumented until she was 14 when she found out her older sister couldn’t go to college because she was undocumented.
López was a “Dreamer” long before that term popularized the struggle of undocumented youth wanting to go to college. She rebelled as a teenager by refusing to heat tortillas for the men in her family because she found it sexist for the men to sit and eat while the women had to cook for them and just eat the leftovers, (a Mexican custom from her region of Mexico). So she swore she would never go into the kitchen to cook for a man. Her parents were working class and could not afford to take the family out to a restaurant. Being large her family could never sit together at the kitchen table and eat together. She now considers hersalf a “foodie” and has visited many Michelin star restaurants in Paris, San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, and Napa.
While López was living in Paris, she decided to enter the kitchen and attend Le Cordon Bleu to study French Cuisine. There she obtained a Supreme Diploma in Cuisine and was inspired to write a culinary and erotic novel titled Hungry Woman in Paris, which was published in 2009 (available for sale at Casa Fina and the Kindle version on Amazon).
She also took a wine course at Le Cordon Blue and got to visit the wine regions of Champagne, the Loire Valley, Burgundy and Bordeaux. And has addede t her culinary repertoire taking cooking classes and has studied pasta making and Thai cuisine basics and the New School of Cooking in Culver City where she studied cuisine with a California touch and making pastries, as well as the Gourmandise Cooking School in Santa Monica, where she studied chocolate making, bread making, pasta making and pastries.
Josefina López loves Boyle Heights and is excited by the nightlife the restaurants and wine bars on First Street have created. She wants to add her “flavor” to the fun ambiance for young Boyle Heights residents to party the night away at Casa Fina’s Cantina.
Agustin Alvarez, Executive Chef at Casa Fina) was born in San Jose por Poliuptla, Guerrero, Mexico and came to the U.S. 17 years ago. His grandmother, Abuela Bernardina who raised him, taught him how to cook all the traditional Mexican dishes. Alvarez began as a dish washer at Mimi’s Café and worked his way up to a Cook in the three years he was there. He learned to cook classic American dishes as well as French cuisine. Alvarez also worked at Hot n’ Tont restaurant in Torrance and at Omelettine where he worked as a cook for three years. Alvarez was finally promoted to Chef and started working for Restaurateur Alonzo Ricardo at his first Great Mex restaurant in Newport Beach for four years. His philosophy for making delicious food is, “I only serve what I would love to eat.” The Owners:
Alonzo Ricardo was born in San Jose Poliutla Guerrero Mexico, and since he was very young he had aspirations to become a business person and took business courses in High School. In 1989, Ricardo arrived to the U.S. at the age of 18 and studied English. He began to work at a Japanese restaurant and grew to love Japanese food.
When he started working at La Linea Coastal Mexican restaurant serving black beans and green rice, he realized that people didn’t want fancy beans and rice, they wanted regular fried beans and rice. That’s when he realized that he could make lots of money selling Mexican food because he ate beans and rice all his life and didn’t think it was that great. He worked at several Mexican restaurants until he opened his first restaurant in Newport Beach in 2002 called Great Mex, serving tacos, fajitas and enchiladas.
Emmanuel Deleage is also the Executive Director of Casa 0101 Theater, a few blocks from Casa Fina restaurant. When Serenata de Garibaldi abruptly closed, a Boyle Heights iconic location, he reached out to his friend Alonzo Ricardo, a restaurant operator, and owner of the Great Mex restaurants in Long Beach and Orange County, to see if he wanted to partner on re-opening a restaurant at this location. Being so close to Casa 0101 Theater, the two ventures seemed like natural partners. Casa Fina, the name, combines two loves of his life, Casa 0101, the theater, and Josefina López, his wife. He hopes to honor the legacy of Serenata de Garibaldi while creating new memories at Casa Fina over great food and in a great ambiance.
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