Creative expression is everywhere at Santa Rosa’s Cafe Frida Gallery

Walking to Cafe Frida Gallery is an immersive experience tugging at all the senses. Emerging from the street and into the cafe, patrons are immediately hit with vibrant colors and art. It might be the butterflies, or the paintings decorating on the walls, or maybe it’s the striking image of Luther Burbank, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.

Regardless, the place inspires.

Mario Uribe opened the creative cafe in 2020 alongside his son-in-law Mamadou Diouf.

As an artist himself, Uribe said he was a part of the SoFA District since 2005 and was approached to purchase the cafe’s property in 2018. He said Diouf had always wanted to own a business and thought this was the perfect chance.

“In December 2018, we bought the business and we spent all of 2019 fixing it up,” Uribe said. “Everything we did ourselves. We built everything. We built the tables, painted the place. And the idea was to have a hang out for the community, not just the immediate neighborhood, but Sonoma County.”

From the beginning, the idea was to create a cafe that displayed local talent.

“It’s a place where artists would gather and show their work. And talk, and that there was good food and drink and camaraderie happening. That’s what our goal was,” Uribe said.

Something for locals

A must-have for Uribe and Diouf was a gallery with art that supported local artists. They also wanted the space to be a music venue of sorts since the patio and a stage was already there. The property was set up for creativity to flow right from the beginning.

Once construction, painting and plan-making were complete, the cafe opened in January 2020, but a month later, the cafe shut completely when COVID-19 made its way to Sonoma County. It was around this time a Sonoma County hospital admitted its first coronavirus patient.

The business pivoted quickly with the rising number of virus cases and ongoing concern over public safety. The cafe then safely opened for take-out only with the hopes residents would support their local business during this uncertain time, but it was a struggle the owners and employees had to endure. Then they began opening for in-house and outdoor dining.

“It was hard and the first year was really tough,” Uribe said. “Our bank account kept going down, down, down.”

Despite continuing to roll with the ups and downs of the ongoing pandemic, Uribe, Diouf and their staff found a way to survive. The camaraderie they wanted to create did happen and has since blossomed over the last two years.

“I'd say it evolved just naturally because of what we intended to do. We've shown a lot of artists we've created,” Uribe said. “We have probably a dozen music groups that play regularly, this has become a community. People come here and because they see each other all the time, they become friends.”

Cafe Frida Gallery’s event calendar is jam-packed with music from local musicians playing everything from Afrobeats to jazz, R&B and salsa. Art shows and tarot readings can also be found at the cafe. There’s always something going on for those who want to immerse themselves in creative energy and for those who find themselves wanting to connect with new people.

A home for love, creativity

While approximately a thousand people frequent the cafe every month, Uribe has one special memory of two customers that met while dancing one Friday night.

“He got up to ask her to dance and she did, and then they danced. And every time we had music, they were here dancing and eventually they were engaged and married,” Uribe said.

Not only did a love story start here, but this is also where people can go outside of their comfort zone and put themselves out there in a creative way, without judgment. An example of that was a Sunday poetry reading at the cafe.

The poetry reading was curated by Ed Coletti, 78, who has been writing and publishing poetry for 50 years. He has organized poetry readings throughout Santa Rosa since approximately 2006.

“I began the poetry readings which I now refer to as ‘festival’ at Cafe Frida since May 27 of this year,” he said. “I’ve decided to do it quarterly.”

Coletti organized his fourth outdoor festival at Cafe Friday Gallery on October 30. His next one is planned for Jan. 29.

Frequent cafe customers will notice a change of scenery on the walls of the business, too. Approximately every two months a different artist’s work is featured on the walls. There’s no charge to look at the art and the cafe owners don’t charge artists for hanging their pieces there. When an item is sold, one-third of the profit goes to the business.

“This is actually my work that's on the walls right now. Because this month I celebrated my 80th birthday,” he said.

The artist’s website states his love of landscape and Asian art began while growing up in Mexico. His childhood home was filled with Japanese art collected by his parents when they lived in Japan in the 1930s. He began painting himself, studying at the Oomoto School of Traditional Japanese Arts in Japan. The artist now creates abstract Zen circles and has been doing so for at least 30 years.

“I've used it (art) not just as a form of mindfulness and spiritual practice, but healing, it's a healing symbol,” he said of the inspiration to create the circles.

'An international feeling’

The artist/ cafe owner has been able to connect more deeply with those both in and outside his creative community. He said local musicians have left their CDs for him to listen to.

“They come to me,” he said.

Uribe also curates the art on the walls and said, the art chosen has to speak for something. He said he has been an artist since he was three and was lucky to have had parents who supported him and helped cultivate his passion for creating.

He also creates in the cafe’s kitchen as a baker. A skill he learned, along with cooking, while he was in the Navy. Many of the recipes at Cafe Frida Gallery are his creations.

“I say that this business is like any restaurant business, it is hard work. You have to work at it. And you have to get up early and be here,” he said. “Cook and grocery shopping every day. But it's also been easy in a way that it's been fun.”

Uribe said people naturally gravitate to the ambiance and the feeling of being welcome. There is even a space in the corner for children to read or play.

“Having a combination of a gallery and a music event and restaurant, we're not a full restaurant, we're a cafe, but it just makes it easier for all three to survive, because it draws people and then to create a place where people can gather. It all adds to that and it's a community,” he said.

Uribe emphasized the diversity Cafe Frida Gallery represents. Diouf is from Africa, and he is from Mexico. Both the menu and the ambiance reflect that duality.

“It's really an international feeling when people come here, and the kind of music we play represents lots of different countries. All of that adds to creating this, we are always wishing for peace in the world,” he said. “That's what we created, I think, and that's what people notice, the diversity not only in the food and the art and the music, it's the people that come here, you can come anytime you see children and families, African people, or Middle Eastern people or Asian people it's an experience and it's a good experience for people who come here.”