Photograph by Katherine Bish
Most St. Louisans’ experience with Rock Hill involves a policeman’s radar gun on Manchester Road. For Jorge Carvalho, it goes a bit deeper. The former owner of Café Brasil feels the city of Rock Hill robbed him of his business. And a bit of his pride. But the executive chef and manager of Coco Locou Brasil in the CWE has managed to put a new spin on the Brazilian churrascaria (steakhouse) concept. The way he runs a restaurant is unorthodox—a little crazy and a little odd—but it’s working. He shared some of his wackiness with SLM.
What happened at Café Brasil? It closed rather abruptly. I don’t want to talk about it. It’s in the past. Rock Hill put me out of business.
How so? They would not renew my liquor license. A steakhouse can’t survive without selling red wine and beer. My volume dropped by a million dollars [a year] after that. They forced me out.
I’m sure they had a reason for not renewing that license. They said I served liquor to minors. [Rock Hill city administrator George Liyeos stands by the claim and tells SLM it was one of several serious infractions from the restaurant. “Jorge had more than enough opportunities to correct the issues,” he says. “We do wish him well in his new venture.”]
How much of your own money did you end up losing? Half a million dollars.
Didn’t the closing of the highway and the McKnight bridge play a part? Yes, it cut off many of my customers, but without liquor, I was done anyway.
Many times I noticed the blinds lowered and cars still in the parking lot late at night. What was going on in there? I had Brazilian friends who came late to jam, after we finished dinner. Almost every night we jammed. Guitars, tambourines, shakes, bongos.
I see you have a piano prominently placed at Coco Locou. Do you jam here as well? We will have some live music, but yes, we jam here, too. Brazilians eat late and party late. Customers get into it with us.
Do you play an instrument? The drums, bongos and tamborine.
This place is warmer and softer than Café Brasil. And classier and richer feeling. It’s just much better space. Music sounds better here too.
So did you duplicate the whole churrascaria concept at Coco Locou? Not exactly. The way we did it, the traditional way, with a buffet and masses of meat, was expensive—for me and the customer. Here we are doing a different churrasco [open-flame cooking style]. One skewer is brought to the table, but for much less money. We’ll still do it the old way, too, but it’s more expensive.
Who does the de-skewering? We have a stand [in the middle of the table] that holds the skewers straight up. Customers grab and they share. It’s fun. It’s my version of churrascaria.
But churrasco is only a small part of the menu. We serve several fresh fish items in the clay pot they’re cooked in. They’re becoming as popular as churrasco. The most popular is a stew called caldeirada.
How does the name “Coco Locou” play into all this? Coco locou means “crazy coconut”; it’s a catchy, fun name, but it also refers to the coconut cups we serve special drinks in. We import them from Brazil. Every one is handmade, every one different. Everybody wants that brown cup.
What’s the deal with the coconuts hanging on the walls? Those are decorations that actually have cachaça [Brazilian rum] in them, infused with kiwi or with pineapple. I sometimes pick them off the wall and serve customers directly from them.
Now that’s different. I make it fun. I run it like a family-style restaurant. I give desserts and drinks away. I want you to have fun.
Marketing with alcohol. There’s some logic in that. A bottle of cachaça is not that expensive. If I use it to make 20 customers happy, it’s OK. They leave this place like they came from heaven. You won’t see that up the street.
You’d never make it in corporate America. My competition was in here to eat, saw me running around, pouring drinks, looking at me like, “Hey, that guy is crazy.” I’m not crazy. I know exactly what I am doing.
So you feel OK about being in this business in 2009. It’s gonna be perfect. I like where we are. I’m not scared. I’m excited.
