the places I visit on the island paradise where I live


Apr 28, 2015

Happy Birthday to The Magic of Design



Camembert cheese from Normandy, France


A post on Facebook got me walking down Memory Lane. We got to chatting about cheese, and I mentioned the best cheese I ever had was in Normandy, France. A Camembert so fresh and without preservatives, it had a 30 day expiration, not the 6 month or one year we are used to on the imported stuff. In fact I photographed it before I ate it.

Our discussion was about food stores and how we don't really have a gourmet store similar to what Moises and I had back in 2001. I shouldn't say it was gourmet, but we did carry many of the things that I missed from the states. The timing was wrong as we opened the week before 9/11 and we lost a bit of money. We had vanilla coffee and bagels with cream cheese and lox. The bagels were baked every week in Cancun. We sold sandwiches and tried to sell towels and sheets and upholstery fabrics. Almost nobody was on the island, so we enticed the dive masters with bagel sandwiches and Dr. Pepper. It was a tough way to make money, and I breathed a sigh of relief when we closed. But truly, I learned so much that helped me with my next venture, The Magic of Design Furniture & Interior Design.


Crazy accessory from our store downstairs in 2011

So it got me thinking about the history of our store. How many people remember that we opened another store downstairs for three months back in 2011? I got in a huge order of accessories from a crazy company in Guadalajara. They sent us everything but what we ordered, and one of the accessories is shown here. It was a person sized tea pitcher and serving cups. It stood 6 feet tall. I remember selling it to a very special client.



our store a few years back


Our first two years were spent in the Swiss chalet house at 10 and 11, back in 2005 to 2007. Trying to locate photos of that store are proving to be difficult, but I bet if I check some of those old disks I will find them. 



Client's new condo 2012


Here are a few more recent posts of our store over the last few years! Ten years we have been in business! Wow, time flies.