In the Know: IM Tapas restaurant ends 10-year run in Naples

It was a matter of time and the time has come.

IM Tapas, a small but popular Spanish restobar in the heart of Naples, closed Saturday night after operating for more than a decade.

Longtime partners Isabel Pozo Polo and Mary Shipman – represented by the I and M in the tapa restaurant’s name – needed a break after working long hours at their local business since launching it in the fall of 2007. They made plans months ago to close at the end of season.

“I’m tired. There’s a cutoff point in this business,” Pozo Polo said Friday afternoon in the restaurant’s kitchen as she and Shipman prepped ingredients for their final weekend. “I looked 10 years younger (than I was) when I started. Now I look 10 years older than I am.”

IM Tapas’ cozy European setting offered a taste of Spain, something slightly different from the average local fare. From its onset, the small plates restaurant at 965 Fourth Ave. N. has been recognized as a dining gem by devoted patrons and a favorite of many area chefs.

When Naples ranked in the top 20 with much larger cities as the best dining options in the U.S. in a Conde Nast Traveler readers poll a few years ago, IM Tapas was one of at least a half-dozen local restaurants the national magazine singled out as examples of Naples’ diverse ethnic offerings.

IM Tapas’ menu included cold tapas such as platters of chorizo sausage and artisan cheese, venison tenderloin carpaccio and pork from wild, acorn-fed Iberian pigs. The restaurant, though, was especially known for its paella made with lobster and langostinos, as well as hot tapas such as its spicy octopus, salt cod croquettes and angulas – Atlantic baby eels.

“It’s artisanal food,” Pozo Polo said. “We upgraded it to make it a little more palatable to Americans, but it’s still food from Spain. I try to do it as religiously as I can the way it would be done in Spain.”

The authenticity attracted a faithful following who were given advance notice of the restaurant’s demise. The final days brought full houses of guests, many of whom got to personally know Pozo Polo and Shipman over the years and dined at the restaurant more than once a week.

“They’ve really become like friends. People are very sad to see us go,” said Pozo Polo, who tried to leave the kitchen to personally say hello to diners.

Despite an extremely successful season, the owners had considered closing for a while.

“Mary wanted to close nonetheless. I mean it was a matter of time,” Pozo Polo said. “We were going to do it last year then decided to keep it going another year. We’re both just tired. Eleven years is a good run. Everything has a beginning and an end. This is the end.”

Their tentative plans were pushed to the forefront when the property’s owners asked them in February to sign a three-year lease. After operating for years without an annual lease and not wanting to get locked into a long-term commitment, the restaurant owners made plans to end their extended run.

“(The process) became accelerated because the owners did what they did,” said Pozo Polo, initially upset by the business dilemma.

The long and the short of it is that the parties agreed to a three-month rent payment that would keep the restaurant in place until the end of May. To give them time to vacate the premises, Pozo Polo and Shipman decided May 19 would be their last night.

“I really want to thank the whole Naples community. They have really been supportive,” Pozo Polo said. “We’re going to rest for three months. We’re just burned out.”

The couple plans to travel this summer to France and Michigan to visit friends they met at the restaurant. In addition to giving themselves some immediate deserved personal attention, they plan to attend to the needs of Pozo Polo’s parents and Shipman’s mother.

“She’s got to take care of her mom and I’ve got to take care of my mom,” Pozo Polo said.

Isabel’s mother, Mami Hilda, has been in the restaurant’s kitchen almost daily creating her famous rice pudding, making empanadas and stuffing artichoke hearts with serrano ham and manchego cheese. Their parents, who have homes in the Naples area, are what brought both of them here many years ago. “They were already here. They’ve been here for 30 years,” Pozo Polo said.

After living in Manhattan for 12 years, the Cuba-born Pozo Polo came to her parents’ home in East Naples.

“Then I met Mary, so that was another reason to stay,” she said. “I was going back to Manhattan, but I decided not to. Then we decided to open the restaurant.”

They hired a chef when IM Tapas originally opened, but Pozo Polo eventually took over executive chef duties at the 65-seat restaurant.

They had an opportunity to open a much larger restaurant on Fifth Avenue, but were content to operate the intimate IM Tapas. The restaurant experienced slow summers, but was always busy during season except immediately after the Gulf oil spill in 2010.

Even being closed Sundays and Mondays this year, Pozo Polo and Shipman each put in about 60 hours per week. That’s down from when they worked as long as 80 hours per week when they were open daily.

After a much-needed break, Pozo Polo has tentative plans to be a private chef in Naples.

“I don’t want anything other than cooking at people’s houses,” she said. “I would go into somebody’s house and do a party for them, but nothing too involved.”

Shipman, who has a degree in pharmacy, plans to eventually return to being a pharmacist and having a steady, year-round paycheck. She previously was a pharmacist in the Publix supermarket at Kings Lake Square in East Naples.

“That’s how we met, at Publix,” Shipman said.

“I am thrilled that we have come all the way around and we’re going to make like the shepherd and get the flock out of here.”

Pozo Polo said they sold their business to a local resident who formerly was a restaurateur in Chicago. An Italian restaurant may soon assume IM Tapas’ space in the middle of Fourth Avenue North, but details are not available yet.

Regardless, IM Tapas is moving out.

“It’s been a great run,” Pozo Polo said. “It’s a Formula One race. It starts off a little bit slow. You speed up. At the end, whoever gets ahead wins. I think we won because we’re still here. We went out on our own terms. We could have continued but we just decided it was time. So, the time has come.”

For the latest in local restaurants coming and going, see Tim Aten’s “In the Know” columns archived at naplesnews.com/intheknow, and on Facebook at facebook.com/timaten.intheknow.