For Michele Tabaroki, owner of Confidanze & Fitness, business is about family.
“It’s my hope is that it will become a place where the whole family can do fitness,” Tabaroki said of the fitness studio she bought eight months ago.
Confidanze was welcomed to the Village of Great Neck at a ribbon-cutting ceremony Monday attended by village officials and members of the Great Neck Chamber of Commerce.
While Confidanze, located at 634 Middle Neck Road, offers many Zumba fitness classs, it also offers yoga classes, cardio classes and hip-hop dance classes as well many classes for children.
The children will have their first recital in June.
Tabaroki touted Zumba as an easy-to-learn way to exercise that can be done by the whole family.
“A lot of people believe in the value of cardio, but on the flip side you need to recognize the value of strength and Zumba has that,” Tabaroki said.
The studio opened about four and a half years ago, she said, but she bought in only eight months ago after working as dance and fitness instructor for nine years, often holding classes at gyms in Great Neck, Manhasset, Glen Cove and Port Washington.
Tabaroki, who has lived in Great Neck for four years, said she got tired of traveling from studio to studio and renting out space to conduct her classes. What she needed, she said, was a home.
She said while conducting dance classes, she started doing Zumba, a fitness program that incorporates both dance and aerobic elements, by accident.
“One of the places I was teaching at needed a Zumba instructor so I became an instructor,” Tabaroki said. “I just fell into it.”
She had taught at Confidanze before, and when the previous owner was looking to sell the studio, she knew buying it was the logical next step in her career. She said the setting was perfect because she wouldn’t have to travel around as much as she used to.
“I’ve been dancing since I was a little girl, and it was always my passion and my dream to own a studio,” Tabaroki said.
By day, Tabaroki had worked primarily in the family business, Robely Trading Inc., a manufacturer of home accessories. Even though she is still the showroom manager of her family’s business in Manhattan, her first love was always dance.
Though she doesn’t work in the family business full-time anymore, she said her business background mixes with her love of dance to make a studio many can enjoy.
Tabaroki’s father, Robert Gabay, owner of Robely Trading Inc., said he knew his daughter was in love with dancing when she was two or three years old.
“This was always the position she wanted to be in,” Gabay said of his daughter. “I supported her – I knew she didn’t just want to do the family business.”
Some of the instructors who were with the studio before Tabaroki bought it stayed.
“We really became a family,” Esther Levy, an instructor with Confidanze for four years, said. “That never changed when Michelle took over.”
She said sometimes when new owners buy businesses, there is a slow transition and the owner changes a lot of what the old business was. She said the only thing Tabaroki has changed was making the space look more aesthetically pleasing and added more classes.
Many of Tabaroki’s family members were at the ribbon-cutting to support her in her new endeavor.
“This is absolutely her dream,” Tabaroki’s cousin Desiree Rastegar said. “She always dances, even in the car when there is no room. As soon as she hears music her body just starts moving.”
Tabaroki’s sister, Melody Pourmoradi, joked her sister was probably dancing in the womb.
“This [studio] is a childhood dream of hers,” Pourmoradi said. “We didn’t know how or when or where it would happen, we just knew it would happen.”
Farnaz Delafraz, Tabaroki’s sister-in-law of 17 years, said her giving nature and determination should translate into making a successful business.
“She always surprises me,” Delafraz said. “She always wants to go one step further and get better and better and higher.”
Village of Great Neck Mayor Ralph Kreitzman helped Tabaroki cut the ribbon at Confidanze Monday, saying he hopes those from Great Neck as well as those from outside of Great Neck use the studio.
“In today’s world of strip malls and the internet we want to have stores that are good for residents and good for others,” Kreitzman said.
