Although it has been restored, the San Pablo is not for sale

DURBAN residents can take a ‘selfie’ with the City’s bluest celebrity- the famous San Pablo Sofa that was looted during the recent unrest in KwaZulu-Natal.

Now refurbished and returned to the local store, Leather Gallery, the sofa makes the perfect social media backdrop to rack up those all-important Instagram likes.

“We have received an enormous amount of interest since the San Pablo has been displayed on our new showroom’s floor. Our customers have loved seeing the famous blue sofa in person, and have enjoyed sitting on it to get the perfect Instagram photo,” said Greg Parry, Leather Gallery owner.

Also read: WATCH: The famous blue couch recovered after KZN unrest

Despite a lengthy repair process, the San Pablo is not up for sale, having never been restored to retail standards. Instead, the couch has found its home at Leather Gallery’s newest Durban showroom in Riverhorse Valley.

“We have tried our best to restore the extensive damage on the San Pablo and have been able to patch up most of the tears and rips in the leather, as well as mend the broken legs and framework. The San Pablo is not on the market as it has been through such extensive damage. We pride ourselves on the excellent quality of our products and so we cannot sell something that is not at its full quality and up to our standards,” said Parry.

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He recalled the repair process.

“When we received the San Pablo back at our warehouse we did a full assessment of all the damage to determine what our next course of action would be. Over the next few days we did as much as we could to repair the damage that had been caused to the San Pablo during the looting. There was more damage to the San Pablo than we thought as we had only seen pictures of the top of the sofa, however, there was quite a bit of damage to the legs and framework underneath,” he concluded.