Page 48 of Lorenzo

It’s a long, low facade of black glass and brushed steel that somehow looks misplaced during daylight hours.

But it matches perfectly with the vibe of Dante’s Inferno across the street. In my mind’s eye, I see myself there last night.

Standing in line and hoping to get into the club without having to use the Ricci family name. Or worse, announcing myself as the boss’s wife.

“So what do you think?” Gina asks, as we get out and walk toward the restaurant’s front door.

“Very sleek,” I say diplomatically. “Are you planning on luncheon service?”

“Oh yes.”

I smile and briefly turn away.

With Gina in such a delicate condition, she does not need to know the lesson I learned from a course I took at BU.

The instructor covered a lot of key points, but the main one was that operating a fine-dining restaurant that offered luncheon service as well as dinner service was a recipe for disaster.

It will be difficult to make the economics work.

But that’s a discussion for another time and place, if there’s ever a discussion about it at all.

Ernesto stops the car and Gina and I walk to the restaurant entrance.

Gina favors me with a little glance of excitement as she fits the key in the lock and gestures for me to enter.

The smell of fresh paint hits me first.

I take another hit of it, getting off on its promise of new beginnings. Corny, I know.

Yet there’s something about a fresh restaurant space, that gets my creative juices going.

This restaurant has good bones, I think to myself.

I study the space the way an aspiring restaurateur would look at it.

On the positive side, the restaurant is large and airy, with large oversized windows and a tall ceiling.

The open kitchen is state-of-the-art.

I can imagine a fleet of young sous-chefs sweating behind the glass facade.

On the negative side, the restaurant’s in the middle of freakin’ nowhere.

I’m not a New Yorker, but it’s smack dab in an industrial concrete jungle, characterized by warehouses and storage space rentals.

Then again, Dante’s Inferno is just across the street. So with Lorenzo’s charm and a whole lot of luck, they’ll have a ready-made customer base.

Once Gina knows she has my attention, she snaps on the recessed overhead lights.

Then she stands back with a proud smile.

“Voilà,” she says, gesturing toward what I assume to be her murals running the length of two walls, ceiling to wainscot. “What do you think?”

“I’m impressed.” I examine the first panel of a satisfied-looking chef with exaggerated features. “So this is what you mean by caricature art.”

“Yes,” she says, stroking Biscotti as she admires her own work.

“The chef figures took an enormous amount of time to design. Dante even brought me to Little Italy so I could capture their personalities and characteristics. But looking at it now, it was all worth it.”