Jacob Cohn Photo
Ana De Los Angeles behind the counter at Manjares.
Ana De Los Angeles was doing well enough with her young Westville coffee shop that she added an evening tapas menu. Now she’s ready to expand into gelato — and a vacant next-door storefront.
When the space at 838 Whalley Avenue that housed Jennifer Jane Gallery was vacated, customers at its next-door neighbor Manjares Pastry Shop began floating the possibility of expansion to owner Ana De Los Angeles.
De Los Angeles opened her Manjares coffee and pastry shop (the name means “food of the gods” in Spanish) two years ago in a West Rock Avenue storefront across from Edgewood Park. People weren’t sure she’d make it; a deli failed before her in the same space.
She did succeed, and the business has grown. So when Jennifer Jane Gallery vacated the space next to hers, at 838 Whalley Ave., customers suggested she expand Manjares into it.
De Los Angeles considered the idea. But she eventually decided the coffee shop/restaurant wasn’t ready for twice the space.
Then the weather turned hot, and she thought of a way to bring new customers and expand her business — opening a gelateria.
Today, De Los Angeles’s planned shop, Frío, is under construction. Although a lease is not yet signed, she expects it to open for business in August in the old Jennifer Jane space.
“My ambition is to provide this gelateria for everybody, from other neighborhoods, from this neighborhood, from Hamden, from wherever people come,” De Los Angeles said.
De Los Angeles has been gradually expanding the menu at Manjares since it opened, adding more sandwiches and breakfast foods. Last April, noticing how quiet Westville became later in the day, a question occurred to her: “Why not open something for the nighttime?”
The solution: tapas. Manjares reopens in the evening for tapas three nights a week, attracting a “steady” stream of customers, though De Los Angeles acknowledges that it’s “not too busy yet.”
Frío’s gelato (the store’s name is the Spanish word for “cold”) will be provided by New Haven-based Gelato Giuliana, recommended to De Los Angeles by many of her customers. (Read about the Gelato empire here.) Besides the frozen treats, De Los Angeles plans to put in a ping-pong table to attract families.
The future interior of Frío.
Since gelato isn’t in high demand year-round, De Los Angeles plans to get around this problem by renting out Frío for catered events during the winter.
De Los Angeles has seen the neighborhood become more livelier since Manjares opened. She said restaurant has managed to attract customers from other areas to Westville.
“In Manjares you can see my customers coming in from East Rock,” De Los Angeles said. “Sometimes they don’t want to come to the Green and they come here.”
De Los Angeles said her regulars have generally been supportive of her plans for expansion. One enthusiastic customer Friday was John Cavaliere, owner of Lyric Hall across Whalley from Manjares. He said that he and De Los Angeles share many of the same clients, who come to Manjares for tapas after shows.
Will he support Frío when it opens? “I’ll be the first customer,” Cavaliere said.