When the keys to their new restaurant were placed into their hands, Carlos Lema and Silvana Santander got straight down to business. For days on end, the husband-wife duo would work from the early morning until late into the night. After repainting the walls and setting up tables, in just three weeks 3303 Parmenter St. was transformed from Pikkito into Toro y Pampa.
“It is fast,” Lema said. “We had to put a lot of love and sweat into this place.”
Toro y Pampa is a new Argentinian-Urguayan restaurant, with dishes coming from Lema and Santander’s home countries. The couple already own a successful maintenance and remodeling company.
But Santander, having been a caterer in Argentina and a lifelong cook, wanted to serve her own food. Lema, though not a new cook, has never worked in food service before. Now he’s all in…