Five years ago, Miami Beach entrepreneur Katia Joseph was about to close his first restaurant. She refused as one of her dreams lies in balance. Instead, she pivoted by turning the business into a hookah lounge.
“I’m the type of person who never gives up,” said Joseph, 40. “I said I wasn’t going to close.”
The trick to Joseph’s bet on himself was opening Casa Matilda, the Miami Beach Steakhouse, in early 2024. In its first year of running the business, Washington Avenue Restaurant welcomed celebrities from rapper 50 Cent to actor Cuba Gooding Jr. and multiple cast members who received “The Real Wyens of Miami.” With many “club StarTranz” in South Beach focused on keeping up with trends, Casa Matilda works to define herself with fresh cuisine and detail-oriented services.
But the path to becoming a restaurateur was not a straightforward one for Joseph, a Haitian native who had worked as a translator in the French film and television industry for over a decade. She was 17 when she moved from her Cap Haitin home in 2003 to live with her French relatives.
Joseph excelled in her new French school, and as she grew up speaking and writing French and also spoke English well, one of her teachers quickly connected to someone who knew her in the film business. Joseph auditioned for Dubbing Brothers, a French studio that produces translations for major films and television productions.
As Joseph began to successfully write the translation, she began planning her goal of working on the Disney show. The supervisor explained that a minimum of three years of experience was required, but when another colleague didn’t show up for work one day, she had the opportunity to show her skills.
“It was for Miley Cyrus and ‘Hannah Montana’,” she said. “I started, they love what I did. (I was doing ‘Hannah Montana’, ‘Zack and Cody’, ‘Wizard of Waverly Place’. ”
Still a teenager, Joseph went to school during the day and made about $260 for each episode she translated after 5pm. She eventually got very fast, translated three episodes a day.
By 2010, Joseph had made significant advances in his translation work and was in charge of training new writers. She has a daughter, Joyce, and she began to wonder how to become a screenwriter for her own original film in English.
When Joseph’s father, Octaville, passed away in Haiti in 2013, she mourned his death and came up with her most important goals. The mentor suggested that immersion helps her become a better English screenwriter and that she should live in Miami for several months. A year later, Miami was her new home.
However, the move has changed her professional journey in a different way. In 2015, Joseph was walking around Miami Beach when he realized he wanted to invest in the community and own a business. She always loved Paul, a foodie and frequent Lincoln Road restaurant.
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With his enduring curiosity about opening a restaurant, Joseph began learning everything he could through YouTube videos and Google search.
“In France, you need every degree,” she said. “I thought I had to get a degree in restaurant.”
On a call with a Swiss friend, Joseph spoke about her restaurant idea and was delightedly surprised when her friend offered to help her with an investment of over $300,000.
The landlord of the building where Joseph lived told her that first level of storefronts were available. She signed a lease in July 2019 and began to realize her first restaurant.
On November 30th, 2019, the Blue Pari Bistro finally opened. Just three months later, her entrepreneurial dream came across a calm reality: the Covid-19 pandemic.
She had to pivot quickly and turned the eatery into a hookah lounge.
“It’s the best decision I’ve ever made,” she said. “Oh my god, I’ve started making good money.”
However, her good fortune was not noticed by her landlord. Following the boom in her hookah lounge business, rentals have gone from $15,000 she previously paid to $25,000 a month in 2021 with 1,500 square feet of space.
After closing the Hooker Lounge in June 2021, Joseph opened the kitchen at Cuban restaurant Matilda that September on Collins Avenue. She still owns and operates the restaurant.
In September 2023, Joseph and her business partners purchased an existing South Beach restaurant, Casa Matilda, after six months of negotiations. She recalls the building being built and says she always portrayed owning a restaurant in the space.
Although the concept wasn’t originally her own, Joseph took a while to retain the name of Casa Matilda, update the decorations, and curate the menu. The menu features Mexican-inspired dishes with twists like Oaxaca Crab Enchilada and Duck Carnitas Tacos, as well as steakhouse dishes like bone-in-the-ribeya and Aging Aging Porterhouse.
Joseph knows the support that black clients have given her business and appreciates it more as a black woman in an entrepreneurial community who doesn’t often look like her.
“The black community is really helping their own people because when I changed (Blue Paris) to hookah lounges, 70% of the customers were black and they really pushed my business a lot,” she said. “Even here in Casa Matilda, I know me from Blue Paris, so I have a lot of customers.”
Joseph has put five years of business lessons under his belt and is considering expanding his restaurant portfolio, with more investors reaching out than ever before. She has recently become a consultant and says it’s also important to her to help others navigate the ups and downs that come with life at a restaurant.
“I want to help black people, women and other minorities as consultants,” she said. “(This work) is really challenging and people sometimes provide false information.”
Despite the challenges Joseph has endured running multiple businesses, she said it’s worth it to do what she loves.
“(a) in a restaurant, you have to love it,” she said. “It’s about love because it’s a tough business.”
