Julie's Cuban Restaurant

Looking around Julie’s Cuban Restaurant, it’s hard to believe owner Sylvia Llewellyn was reluctant to run a restaurant. The space radiates warmth, lovingly decorated with antiques from the ’50s and ’60s and softly lit with strings of lights. But, she says, becoming a restaurateur was never her intention or her passion. “I didn’t want to work in a restaurant,” she says. “I’d never worked in a restaurant.”

Instead, Julie’s was born out of circumstance. Faced with an early ’90s recession, Sylvia tried to sell the building, after she took over ownership from her mother Julie, but it proved difficult. So Sylvia embraced the space, renovating and turning it into a licensed restaurant. Despite her initial apprehension, it didn’t take long before Julie’s became known as the place to get the perfect mojito or to have a first date.

“Within six months, we were so popular that visitors from New York and L.A. were booking tables,” says Sylvia, seeming somewhat surprised herself by the restaurant’s quick rise to success. It even became popular with the celebrity crowd, counting Rachel McAdams, Natalie Portman and local celebrities among its customers.