Many of our readers expressed concern about Cafe Renata at 43rd and Locust being closed last week. So here’s what happened – Renata owners, Katie and Yasser, were doing a little facelift and also installed a new counter. Katie said that they moved the bar out of the center of the room and Yasser, actually, built the new bar and a bunch of tables himself with recycled pieces of wood. After the remodeling the cafe space for seating has increased by about 30%. The new counter and long table were made from salvaged trees and Yasser did the finishing work.

“We couldn’t have done it without the West Philly Tool Library. I think we borrowed a zillion different thingamajigs from them for this project,” said Katie in an email.