By Landon Stokes

Do you ever live in constant fear of seeing your teachers outside of school? Prepare to face your fears, as teachers actually have lives outside of school. One such teacher is Polly Furay, who works outside of the school setting at her restaurant, Little Brazil.

So your restaurant, Little Brazil, is it authentic Brazilian cuisine or is it a little more Brazilian-American?
It’s very authentic Brazilian. It’s homestyle cooking, so it’s something you would have made for you in a family’s house, as well as some of the fried pastries you might find on the street. We don’t compete with some of the steakhouses downtown, but two of our chefs are from Brazil, so it’s very authentic.

So do you import your foods from Brazil, then?
Yes, everything is imported. We have a market as well, so it all comes straight from Brazil.

How long have you been in business?
This is our fifth year. We started over in Westminster and now we’re here in Wheat Ridge.

What made you want to start up your own restaurant?
It actually wasn’t me. A friend of mine who is Brazilian wanted to buy the business, which was actually a market. She had this vision of making it into a restaurant as well as a market, so she bought it from the previous owner and asked me if I wanted to jump on board as a financial partner and help out with it. So it was really just an adventurous business decision that I decided to get into.

Do you prefer teaching or running the restaurant?
I prefer teaching, absolutely. The restaurant is fun, but I don’t do too much over there. I’m kind of a silent partner. I do a lot of the accounting stuff, stuff in the background so I don’t really spend too much time at the restaurant itself anymore. I used to though. I used to work all the time there, but I like teaching better.

So is it difficult then sometimes to manage teaching and co-running the restaurant at the same time?
Absolutely. When we had very few employees it was really difficult because when I would leave [WRHS] I would go straight over there and work there as well, and it was really hard more me to juggle my time. But now that we have been able to build up more revenue and have more employees I don’t usually have to be there. It’s not as hard for me to balance the two anymore.

Do you enjoy it then? Is running the restaurant a cool experience?
Yes, I love having it. We throw a lot of parties, we bring the Brazilian community together. When there’s big soccer games, people come and gather at our restaurant and Brazilians love their soccer, so there’s a lot of energy involved in that. We have two TV’s in there that we show soccer games on, and when the World Cup was going on we had the parking lot blocked off with giant TVs so it really brings the Brazilian community together.

Is there anything you’d like to say to students and staff reading this? Regarding your restaurant specifically, starting a restaurant in general, etc.
In terms of running a business, it’s a lot of work. You have to have some grit, and when things go bad you just continue to work through it. You can’t just give up, because running a business, especially from scratch and building a clientele is really hard, but it’s also really rewarding once you do. And I tell you what, our food is delicious because of it, and you won’t regret giving us a shot.