NUMBER 3 - PEOPLE & EVENTS - MONIKA HENREID RETURNS. One of my greatest thrills soon after we opened was hosting a dinner for Monika Henreid, daughter of actor Paul Henreid who played Victor Lazlo in "Casablanca." It turned out that evening was her birthday, which made it even more memorable. We've kept in touch and finding Monika in Vienna advising on an Austrian government sponsored retrospective honoring the centennial of her father's birth in January, we put our heads together to see how to get her back to Casablanca. And then another stroke of destiny...finding that November 26 was the 65th anniversary of the official premiere of "Casablanca", so her itinerary was fixed. We had the Veuve Clicquot on ice for her arrival, and it was great to catch up and trade stories of what we've both been up to the last three years. Several evenings Monika would sit in the lounge and watch the film, invariably falling into conversation with visiting tourists. I got a kick out of someone writing in our guest book: "Rick's is amazing - tonight I met Victor Lazlo's daughter." Monika was the honored guest at our anniversary dinner, and made a dramatic exit late that night to catch, not the flight to Lisbon, the flight to Frankfurt and on to Vienna. Monika was a great hit with our clients, our staff - but most of all Madame Rick had a fun time sitting around gabbing with Victoria Lazlo! NUMBER 3 - ADDITIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS AT RICK'S - THE PERGOLA TERRACE BARBECUE AND BAR. Last year's inauguration of our terrace was a first step in revealing better ideas and more possibilities. Fortunately Issam was willing to take on the creative and organisational challenge, and he succeeded several times over. The only thing that remained of the earlier effort was the brick planter with our lovely palms. Even then the bamboo was removed, replaced by bougainvilla which is trained to crawl up green lattice. A beautiful wood pergola was built covered with a cane mat to shelter from the sun. Rataan tables and chairs were commissioned. Mauritanian reed and leather mats were sewn together (tatami style) to cover the cement tile, the counter was elevated and became a bar. The barbecue had to be re-oriented 180 degrees, restaurant grade counter height refrigerators were installed, 1 for the bar, another for the kitchen. Proper work space with hot and cold running water. The bar is evocative in style of Old Havana and Issam compiled a disc of old Cuban and Portuguese Fado music which puts the perfect accent on this "other face" of Rick's. And it's great to note that today, December 29, we still had some clients enjoying lunch on the terrace. |
