DATE: Saturday, June 7, 1997                TAG: 9706070758

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Guy Friddell 

                                            LENGTH:   54 lines

A NEIGHBOR FOR HOOTERS, A CONTRAST IN CONCEPTS

La Boulangerie in Norfolk will open a second bakery-cafe today at Waterside.

In six months on Colonial Avenue, 100 or so feet beyond 21st Street, it has built a following of customers who regard it as a kind of elegant tearoom.

In the west end's first floor at Waterside, La Boulangerie will be diagonally across from the Hooters restaurant that generated reader responses in Thursday's Pilot.

I dropped by Hooters Friday morning to check the decor. A half-dozen fresh-faced young waitresses eyed the curious apparition of a doddering foxy grandpa materializing before the place had opened.

They looked, wide-eyed, as if gazing at a rickety one-horse shay. A swift sidelong glance left me with the impression that Hooters has the casual summer ambience of a restaurant on Atlantic Avenue at Virginia Beach staffed with bright co-eds.

The two differing neighbors will prove compatible, I'd say.

La Boulangerie is run by ``the whole family,'' said Margaret Harvey - herself, her husband and four children. They split into two teams to operate both places.

The day dawns at 5 o'clock for baking 46 kinds of breads and desserts that are rotated weekly, a carousel of sweet cuisine.

The Waterside menu, from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., offers soups, sandwiches, desserts. With a shy, yet flashing smile, Margaret said, ``A lot of the recipes I make up; a lot were handed down.'' Some were from her grandmother in Trinidad.

Margaret graduated from a culinary school in New York and was a chef in Long Island. Visiting a friend here, she was taken by the warmer weather, the slower pace.

Moving in 1989, the family ran a bakery in Virginia Beach before launching a full three-meal-a-day restaurant in Norfolk.

Maggie Curtis, operations manager for Waterside, brought back glowing reports of La Boulangerie, said Waterside general manager Vann Massey. A team set out to recruit and lease a branch for Waterside.

``No way,'' said Margaret.

But, she said, they made it seem easier with a short, experimental lease allowing either party to withdraw if need be.

``We structured a deal where there's not much risk for her because it's fully equipped and she didn't have to put a whole lot of money in it,'' Massey said. ``It it does well, everybody wins because she will pay rent based on her sales. It's win-win.''

At Waterside, Massey said, ``The floors have been redone. We've installed a new sound system. The interior lighting has been upgraded. Kiosks have been removed to allow more visibility.

``We've got funds to give Waterside a face lift.''

My advice: Try the crisp elephant ears at La Boulangerie.

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