Café Stella Owner Stands By His New Wall at Sunset Junction, Invites Everyone to Join Him For Coffee, Talk
Café Stella owner Gareth Kantner gave Echo Park Patch a tour of the new wall/bar space (Screenshot)
The other day we asked WTF is with that new wall sticking out from the restaurant and retail space at Sunset Junction, and we learned it's an expansion of Café Stella that will feature a full bar for all your drinking needs. But that doesn't mean locals, and frequent visitors to Silver Lake alike, will actually like the wall.
Café Stella owner Gareth Kantner, however, stands by his wall, and as Echo Park Patch discovered, put out a call to have anyone interested in talking about his business improvements to come by for a cup of coffee:
Tuesday night, at 6:43 p.m. Kantner extended the following invitation to local residents, as a comment on the Eastsider LA site:Good evening all of you!!!
I invite all to come and join me for a cup of coffee tomorrow … At cafe stella
To image [sic] in a open dicussion
I would love to talk and listen to ideas and concerns
Let me know?As he noted Wednesday morning at 10:19 a.m. in the same comment stream:
Nobody for coffee at stella
That’s what I thought!!!
But Patch showed up (we missed the invite and Kantner didn't leave us a comment) and got a coffee, and listened to Kantner explain that "he'd consider inserting Moroccan-style window cutouts--or some other light-bringing device--into the wall," and that he will be at tonight's community meeting with "an artist's rendering of how things will look when the wall's painted, decorated and covered by plants."
In the below video shot by Patch, Kantner explains that the wall will have bougainvillea to give it more height, lights to keep the corner safe, and possibly a community board on the Sunset side so people can post things like "drums for sale." His goal is to ensure patrons sitting at the bar won't have to look outside and see El Pollo Loco.
Kantner also reportedly said anyone is welcome to come by his office above the restaurant for a coffee and to talk about his expansion.
