Perola Bar or the revival of the Blue Mall
The Blue Mall, this shopping mall located in Cupecoy and which was inaugurated in December 2013, is fuelling a few rumors on the social networks. Despite its choice location and its nine floors, the establishment doesn’t seem to draw any crowds. What will become of it? According to Eduardo De Haay, marketing manager, it’s going to be reorganized. All the shops, which are currently spread out on the first five floors, will be relocated to the ground floor. "We will keep the stores which are successful and will add those that the consumers want. We’re going to redesign the space", he explained. As for floors 2 to 5, they will host a large hotel chain in the near future whose name cannot be officially disclosed for the moment: "There will be a lot of rooms and we will need a lot of employees" he said while ensuring that this large-scale project will participate in the economic development of the island. The idea is to restore life to this giant by counting, among other things, on events.
Publicity at the pub
The FVI Group (Fondo de Valores Inmobiliarios), the owner of the shopping center, is one of the TOP 100 Venezuelan companies. They also own a Blue Mall in Santo Domingo, as well as several other malls in Venezuela. Royne Moreno was invited to open the Perola Bar at the beginning of 2016, whose slogan has an obvious meaning: «Good things happen to people who drink good beer». At the age of 43, this beer and rock lover who loves to give advice or tell stories first worked in an advertizing agency in Venezuela. "Since we were creative and we loved beer, we began to brew five years ago. In our country, there are only three industrial beers like Pils and we wanted to discover different flavors. It wasn’t a micro-brewery but rather a nano-brewery." he reminisced. Encouraged by their friends and clients at the agency who they asked to taste their production, they started selling it in hotels and restaurants. Their business had everything it needed to develop but the government wanted to "keep the whole market". They didn’t get the necessary licenses and therefore decided to leave the country. Especially since the ingredients are hard to import.
More than 50 beers on the menu
After a stay in Miami in 2015 where they contacted the micro-brewery MIA with whom they became partners, Royne and his friends landed in St. Maarten. The island gave them their lucky break since good draft beer is nowhere to be found. Royne saw a lot of similarities between beer and music: "these are two areas in which we can learn every day and discover different cultures". He offers more than 50 beers. All the draft beers come from MIA for the moment and are imported in plastic barrels. While the ones in bottles come from all over the world. This is a way of traveling without having to go anywhere. They decided to add their own culture to this melting pot by naming the place Perola, which informally means several things, including "old can". Most of the customers are American (students and tourists). Even though according to the manager, new French customers come every day for Happy Hour. Stickers, T-shirts, concerts on the terrasse and design which is both roots and post-industrial give the place a Williamsburg kind of feeling, the hip Brooklyn neighborhood. By drawing young people, the Perola Bar seems to embody the renaissance of the Blue Mall.
