Processing Your Payment

Please do not leave this page until complete. This can take a few moments.

June 1, 2022

Hartford restaurant entrepreneur Gina Luari opens fourth Place 2 Be in Springfield 

Gina Luari
By Michael Puffer

Budding restaurant mogul Gina Luari – with three popular Place 2 Be restaurants in Hartford and West Hartford – quietly opened a new location at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield on Friday.

The “soft” opening, with reduced hours, was announced only on Instagram and was meant to ease a new staff into routines. The new brunch-all-day officially opened Wednesday, with hours of 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days a week.

Luari said the trial run was brisk, with about $30,000 in sales during the first three days. 

“Actually, a lot of people came, so that was really exciting,” Luari said. “Even during a soft opening, we did pretty decent.”

This is Lauri’s first restaurant venture outside of Connecticut, and one of five new restaurants the 30-year-old entrepreneur plans to open this year.

An immigrant from Albania, Lauri helped her parents manage a Rocky Hill diner in her teens. At 24, she opened the first “Place 2 Be” restaurant on Franklin Avenue in Hartford. It has a fun, vibrant and diverse atmosphere that appeals to a younger crowd while welcoming all ages. Locations in downtown Hartford and Blue Back Square in West Hartford followed.

Luari plans to open another Place 2 Be in New Haven this year, as well as a raw bar seafood restaurant, southwestern cuisine restaurant and pizza restaurant in Hartford.

At 6,000 square feet, the Springfield location is Lauri’s largest to date. It features a private events space for up to 100 people, an outdoor patio and four bars.

Luari said it cost about $600,000 to $700,000 to launch the new space, between décor, supplies, equipment and lease costs. She has hired 25 staff so far and aims to take on 50 total.

Supply chain delays pushed back the opening, as even décor was hard to come by. The Springfield location has The Place 2 Be’s signature clawfoot tub ball-pit in which visitors can frolic, but the swinging, ceiling-mounted chairs are on backorder. It was a struggle to find bar chairs. Luckily, Luari’s designer had another client with excess chairs to sell. Lauri said she was budget conscious about launch costs, given the strange economic times.

“At a time like this, I tried not to go crazy, because it was impossible to get anything,” Lauri said. 
 

Sign up for Enews

Most Recent

Most Recent

0 Comments

Order a PDF