Serial Eater putting their house on the line, they moved practically overnight: “We don’t take a month off to do things,” Ilma says. “We closed Leblon up the street on a Sunday, and on Tuesday we were open here. It was crazy.” Just as crazy was the schedule for opening Monezi’s first location. They closed their illconceived Brazilian bakery and sandwich shop on Muirs Chapel Road in June of 2008. “It was a nonprofit organization,” says Walter. By August, they’d opened Monezi, with Ilma eager to provide jobs for those who lost them at the bakery. Admittedly shaken by the bakery’s failure, Ilma says, “I got right back on the horse. I am Aries. I think it has to do with my stubbornness, not giving up.” Ilma had been thinking about the Brazilian buffet concept for some time when she stumbled across a restaurateur who practically begged her to take the keys of his restaurant, with all its furnishing . . . and a cooler full of food . . . and three-months free rent. “The offer was too good to turn down,” she says. By the time Walter found out about it, it was practically a done deal. Same with the bakery: “I don’t always tell him what I’m going to do,” Ilma admits. “Sometimes, he comes home and says, ‘What the hell is this?’” Walter’s quick to give his wife credit for her innovative ways: “She really does have a vision,” he says. And Ilma’s gotten used to her husband’s attention to detail and buttoned-down attitude (he doesn’t drink and, though from Rio, disapproves of Carnival, she says). “He keeps an eye on quality and he’s a perfectionist in the kitchen.” Says Walter: “We execute well together.” True, she agrees, “but I’m the one who takes all the risks.” Despite being in the middle of a recession, moving the steakhouse to the new location almost doubled their business. It’s too soon to say whether Monezi, which wasn’t a moneymaker at the old location, will experience similar success. It was jammed on a recent weekend, but, as the couple knows only too well, Greensboro has a way of mobbing new restaurants for a few months and then forgetting all about them. That’s why Walter has gone back into the kitchen at Monezi, preparing many of his old favorites with the help of a Brazilian cook, Helena Almeida. Ilma’s son by her first marriage, Leo Freitas, is a manager. What’s next? “There’s something cooking,” says Ilma. “But don’t say anything. Walter’s not going to be able to sleep.” Giving her husband sleepless nights is all about a promise she made when she was a child: “I promised myself, and not because I was a girl, that I would prove to my brother and mom that I would be as successful as my brothers.” Besides, she says, “Life becomes too boring. Get stuck and you die.” OH
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
We’re not a mexican restaurant, we’re a taco joint Tuesday-Thursday 11am-9:30pm Friday & Saturday 11am-10pm 219-A South Elm Street Greensboro NC 27401 | (336) 273-0030 www.craftedtheartofthetaco.com
The Bistro at Adams Farm 5710-M High Point Road Greensboro | 336.294.4610 thebistroatadamsfarm.com April 2013
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