Meet paradis books & bread | Bookstore, Bakery, Wine Bar & Shop

We had the good fortune of connecting with paradis books & bread and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi paradis, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
paradis books & bread is a bookstore, bakery, wine shop & bar — a culmination of all of our experiences and passions in one place. The idea for paradis was born almost 10 years ago; having been immersed in the NYC restaurant world, we were most inspired by the idea of opening a casual, yet refined restaurant in the traditional sense. But, as our experiences and interests expanded over the years, we came to realize that a restaurant was just not enough to support what we ultimately wanted to share with others. From the initial desire to open a restaurant, we became more and more interested in the question of what a physical space can offer, becoming obsessed with the perhaps obvious but nevertheless valuable idea that there’s something special about coming together, as well as the possibilities for learning with, caring for, and enjoying one another. We wanted to have a space of our own, where we could create, experiment, and explore with others. From there, the desire for such a space and our interests in food, wine, and books sort of fed off each other because we realized that if we want people to hang out in our space, we need to support them in doing so; there needs to be affordable food to eat, coffee for our morning folks, delicious wine for our evening crowd, and books that you could certainly buy but could sit-in and read for free. We’ve found it incredibly special to try to do this here in Miami because it is a city where there is room to experiment and where people are open to new projects that don’t fit certain molds.

What should our readers know about your business?
We are an owner-operated bookstore, bakery, wine shop & bar coming soon to North Miami, offering an intimate and communal space to the people of South Florida. The most immediate answer to what sets us apart from others would likely be that we’re operating under a different business structure than usual for our industry. By being owner-operators without employees, we’re able to be more experimental with our offerings as well as our pricing structures and really pursue our own ideas. Our specific work experiences in the food and beverage industry have in no ways been unique. As a worker in this industry, you often find yourself in a labor intensive environment, pushed to go above and beyond what is outlined in your job description or compensated for in the pay structure, in order to produce or provide something that justifies an ever increasing price point. Our business model grants us more control over the value produced from these intensive labor practices and allows us to share them more broadly with others by offering quality house-made products at a more accessible price point. Of course, this business structure is certainly not without precedent; we’re inspired by (perhaps even nostalgic about) the idea of the cooperative or collective and a long history of its being instantiated in bookstores, bakeries, buyers clubs, community centers, familial restaurants, etc., of varying durations/spells. Even though we haven’t opened quite yet, it’s still been a long journey to get to where we are. Getting “here” has involved an ongoing commitment to work together, respecting and supporting each other’s different talents and making decisions as a group. More important perhaps has been an even longer, less intentional period of getting together as friends, growing and sharing things with each other for years, which has gone on to shape our business in countless ways. As far as what we’re most excited for, it’s probably finally getting open and running this place! Working for ourselves and with each other, getting to really exercise our accumulated and collective knowledge base together, doing the things we love day in and day out, and sharing that with people. We’re also excited to see the innumerable ways in which people will hopefully respond to and interact with our space, challenging our expectations and anticipations and allowing the space to grow and adapt to a local set of desires and interests. The journey definitely hasn’t been easy — finding our building was one of the most especially challenging aspects, as it took us well over a year to find a location that would work for us and it was difficult at times to remain patient with the process. Additionally, each one of us in our own time had to make the decision to leave NYC to come to Miami and commit to this project, and the risk of moving to a completely different city and community is always difficult. Throughout the process, we really had to stay flexible and roll with the punches and make decisions we didn’t expect to make, but that ended up being best for us. One of the biggest lessons we’ve learned along the way is patience. Patience is so, so important. We used to be skeptical about people who said it takes forever to open a restaurant, and that there would always be obstacles you didn’t expect, but they were definitely right. We could never have anticipated all of the sort of stop-gaps to opening, and finding patience and taking it a day at a time has been a huge lesson learned, especially with Covid-19.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
In a Covid-free world, these are some of the things we would do with a friend coming to visit, in no particular order: Head to Boia De, Jaguar Sun, and Niu Kitchen for a meal, a drink, or both Go to North Beach for a beach day and end with tacos & totopos at Taquiza Pasta Thursday at Macchialina Bring a couple of bottles of wine to CY Chinese Put your name down for a table at Lung Yai Thai Tapas, and wait for your seat at Union Beer just down the street. Go to El Bagel as soon as possible Spa Day at the Standard Go for a long bike ride on Key Biscayne, or up the bike path from South Beach to Surfside Picnic or BBQ in Morningside Park

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Of course there are a few restaurants, bars and bookstores that have motivated us to pursue this project, but there is no way we could have gotten here without the love and support of our friends we’ve been lucky enough to meet and grow with for years. From students, thinkers, writers, artists, and incredible home cooks, the close friends we’ve been surrounded by both in Miami and in NYC have and continue to expand our worlds. Our space is really a result of years of conversations and idealizing that we’ve been doing with each other and with our creative, critically thinking, and encouraging friends who have shaped us and our vision in innumerable ways, so we absolutely dedicate this shoutout to them.

Website: pbb.cafe

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paradis.bb/?igshid=1vqk71t6wfqmc

Image Credits
James Jackman, Terence Price II