Beach Gallery & Café (BG&C) and its Connection to Beach Recovery LLC (BR)
Beach Recovery LLC provides the only sustainable solution to beach erosion and restoration. With beach erosion and its ancillary consequences becoming an increasingly bigger problem, both domestically and on an international scale, we sought a place to highlight this issue at a singular location, in this case, the Norwalk,
CT location. The premise there was to highlight the fun of photography and the tools available to photographers at any level of sophistication. No Nikon products were sold there. The focus was not about a commercial venture, but rather solely about the fun and excitement of photography and the tools that make it happen. Seminars, classes and exhibits were the featured offerings. As with the Nikon House example, the intent and purpose of creating the BG&C was not to promote BR LLC, a commercial venture, but rather to ‘beta test’, if you will, a venue to promote and inform the public to the overarching problem of beach erosion. Our goal was to learn how to construct a prototypical Café venue---to learn how to develop a realistic construction budget, to create the proper ambiance, menu, layout, visuals and acoustics for the space; one that would provide an attractive, relaxed space for the public to enjoy appealing food and wine, and in a relaxed and comfortable setting, all the while providing educational information on beach erosion and its consequences. Having successfully completed this phase of our work, we have now turned the BG&C’s operation over to our original partner in this venture, veteran CT. restaurateur Graziano Ricci. Long term, when funding becomes available from our work with BR, we hope to duplicate what we created in Norwalk on a selected national basis, and thereby elevating the dialogue of beach erosion and its consequences to an ever-wider audience.