A real estate agent and a remodeling contractor by day, Reena and Abel Reyes are partners in life and in their shared business of teaching salsa in the evenings and on weekends.
They opened the Salsa Center in 2011 on Allendale Drive off Harrodsburg Road on Lexington’s south side, where they offer group classes and private instruction in Cuban salsa.
Reena Reyes comes by her love of dancing and the arts naturally. Her mother was a ballerina, her uncle has portrayed Michael Jackson in Lexington’s Halloween “Thriller” performances and her grandmother is a professional singer.
“My mom is from the Philippines; my father from Columbia. I do have Latin blood there, that’s why I love salsa so much,” she said. She was born in Kentucky and met her husband-to-be at a Cuban salsa party. He is from Havana.
“I came here eight years ago with $7 in my pocket,” Abel Reyes said. “I came chasing the American dream, being able to have your own business and succeed. It’s doable; most people just give up. I’m not stubborn, but I like to keep trying to achieve what I decided to do.”
He has a degree in literature and foreign languages, but uses his carpentry skills to make a living. Not long after settling in Kentucky he started a remodeling business called A Home Solutions (www.ahomesolutionsky.com).
Reena Reyes graduated from the University of Kentucky with a degree in business and finance. She has been a real estate agent with Legacy Real Estate Firm since 2007. When the lease was up on the building they were renting for the Salsa Center in 2014, the couple combined their professional skills and purchased a distressed building across the street.
“It was cement walls. It literally had been vacant for many years,” she said. “One day my husband walked by it and said, ‘That’s our studio.’ It had no electricity, no plumbing, no HVAC.”
It took him a year to rehab the building, and they shut down the Salsa Center during renovations. They reopened in September 2015.
“The people on the street were very thankful for taking that eyesore off the street,” Reena Reyes said. “When you purchase your own property, your mortgage is so much cheaper than your lease. We were able to cut our costs by three times.”
The Reyeses make a good team, running all aspects of their dance center.
“With my finance degree, I take care of a lot of the business’ books side,” Reena Reyes said. “He’s good at logistics and he is a visionary.”
