40. RENOVATING

AS SOON AS Hajrudin started renovating the old restaurant, he found extensive water damage behind the decrepit wood paneling in the party room. Behind the large refrigerator. Behind the acoustic tile in the ceiling. Under the long bar, and under the floorboards.

This infuriated—and energized—Mersiha.

“He hid it!” she said about the former owner, recalling how he had refused a second round of inspections. The inspector had been unable to move the refrigerator to see what was behind it. She wished she had stuck to her offer of $165,000. “If I see him now, I will not be quiet!”

Hajrudin took this setback—which would cost them thousands of dollars—as if he had been slugged. Mersiha had never seen him so disappointed.

“I just don’t have the strength,” he told her.

He worried—maybe he should take a part-time job to help pay for the extra costs. But Mersiha reminded him that he would make so little—it was best to keep renovating the restaurant full time.

She opened four new credit cards.

Hajrudin dug in: He changed the basement beams, cleaning and bleaching everything. Then he put in new walls and flooring. He rewired the electricity and put in new outlets.

“He started to see there’s light at the end of the tunnel,” Mersiha said.

Mersiha was in contact with the owners of cafés she admired in England, Italy, and Croatia. Talking with them helped crystallize what she wanted: a cool, colorful environment that would draw in young people, as well as others. She wanted her café to have a European feel.

Her model was EL&N, a chain in London. “It’s the most Instagrammable café,” she said. “In every corner, you can take awesome pictures.” The cafés have pink banquettes, smooth surfaces, and walls of tiny fabric flowers.

Mersiha expressed disdain for a popular brick-walled café in downtown Utica. Old-fashioned is out, she said. “A modern look is in.”

She planned to have a curtain of flowers, like EL&N’s, at the entrance, where people could take photos; she hoped it would distract customers from the restaurant’s run-down facade. Next year, after they make some money, the couple plan to renovate the facade.

Mersiha carefully chose every element of the new restaurant: pink and blue jelly glasses, white plates, comfortable velvet-upholstered chairs and love seats. Seating will be roomy—so people can relax.

But it is all about getting on Instagram, Mersiha said: She is proud she has 16,000 followers. All day long, she connects with them. People keep asking: “When will the new restaurant open?”

To walk through the restaurant—an enormous construction site—is to be daunted by what the couple have taken on.

The former owner left a lifetime of debris—sports trophies, broken machinery, old lamps—which will have to be dumped. Plates, mugs, and cups are stacked everywhere. Old wires are strewn about. The big kitchen, with its old, stainless steel counters, looks Dickensian.

The couple have been renovating the party room so they can start catering. One wall was just painted—a cool, pearly gray. But the room is jammed with a dozen tables covered with junk; a frayed red carpet is underfoot.

A long, dark corridor opens onto the cream-colored ballroom. There is room for dozens of tables. But it looks abandoned, eerily empty, except for an army of black and burgundy chairs.

The café—the heart of the complex—is quickly coming together.

On a recent Sunday at 6 p.m., Mersiha brought a pizza for Hajrudin, who was working alone. He had just put in new wood floors. The ocean-gray wall facing the mahogany bar seemed to glow.

As they stood by the bar, admiring how wide and elegant it is, Hajrudin said, “We can put stools here, and customers can sit.”

“No,” Mersiha cut him off. “I like that space open.”

“But it would be so pleasant—”

“No!”

But there was no hostility. They wandered around the empty space, talking about things to be done. Mersiha said she would start painting the party room on Monday.

There was an underlying sense of urgency. It was October 2019; they were hoping to open in December.

She and Hajrudin felt the gravity of their situation.

Their upstairs tenant had recently left; the apartment’s toilet had leaked through the restaurant’s ceiling. The whole apartment now needed to be redone.

They had taken money out of their 401K to buy the building. Everything since then has cost far more than they expected. They were out of cash.

“My husband thinks I’m too far out,” Mersiha said, gathering some bags as she and Hajrudin got ready to leave.

She knew they were on a cliff: “We don’t know what’s going to happen.” They could fail.

She shrugged at the thought. “We will handle that. We have been through worse.”

She shut off the café’s lights; their kids were waiting for them at home. “There’s no success without risk,” she said.