Angelo Esposito [00:00:06]:

Welcome to Wisking it all with your host, Angelo Esposito, co founder of Wisk.AI, a food and beverage intelligence platform. We're going to be interviewing hospitality professionals around the world to really understand how they do what they do, from chefs to owners, mixologists to bar managers, you name it. We want to provide you guys with a ton of value, anything hospitality related. Welcome to another episode of wisking it all. We're here today with Joey and Orlando Napolitano from Brotelli Pasta Bar. Gentlemen, thank you for being here.

‍

Joey Napolitano [00:00:48]:

Thank you for having us.

‍

Orlando Napolitano [00:00:49]:

Thanks, Angelo, for bringing us on the air.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:00:51]:

Of course, full disclosure, I actually know Joey Orlando quite well, and I got the idea of having them on the show because of their experience in the industry. And I think it'd be really interesting for this episode to shed some light on someone who's still in the juice. I'll let you guys speak a little bit about Brotelli, but as a quick background, they've been in the business for two years, and I think sometimes having that fresh pair of eyes will resonate with our audience who are thinking about getting into the industry. So why don't we start off maybe by just getting a little background of what is Broatelli pasta bar?

‍

Joey Napolitano [00:01:23]:

So Brotelli pasta bar essentially is a quick service pasta bar concept. So the name Brotelli comes from the word brothers and the italian word for brothers Fratelli. And we're situated in Montreal, downtown in the CIBC tower. So going back, like, how we got the idea was my brother and I were working in banking, and we go for lunch with colleagues, and we noticed that no one ever had to pass the option, and yet it's one of the foods that's most commonly eaten around the world, but yet no one was having it for lunch in a quick service setting, primarily because the pasta that was available was pre made in a big cafeteria tray under a dry heat lamp. It didn't really look appetizing, didn't have a lot of flavor, so of course, people weren't attracted to it. So we did our research on quick service pasta, and we saw that this concept was very popular in Europe and northern Italy and France studied it, and we decided to open it in Montreal because there wasn't really a pasta option.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:02:20]:

I love it. It's really true, actually, because when I think about it, when I used to go to food courts and you have your standard options, and there'd always be maybe one option that had pizza and pasta, but like you said, it wasn't the most appetizing, to say the least. Love the concept. I wanted to maybe take a step back and get into the how. It's always fascinating to me to understand how people get into the hospitality industry. I'd love to hear from both of you, or either of you, how you first got into this business.

‍

Orlando Napolitano [00:02:48]:

Okay. My brother and myself, we grew up in a family that ran an italian restaurant. Our grandfather, he started a restaurant called Casanopoli back in 1979. My father grew up in there, and so we were always involved. Maybe not on a day to day, but whenever it was a big event, my father needed an extra pair of hands. We were there to help out. And it's funny to say that my father was always the type of guy that discouraged us from getting into this industry as much as possible. So he was always like, go to school, become a lawyer, become an accountant, do your education.

‍

Orlando Napolitano [00:03:22]:

So we really took out that path. And our dad was a pretty strong fellow, so we listened to him. And I think he was just basing it a lot on his experiences in his era. A restaurateur didn't have a PoS system, didn't have an inventory management system. So for him, you're a slave to your establishment. You got to open the door. You got to close the door every night. And for me and my brother, we got into pursuing our studies working in the banking industry, working in the finance industry, we realized that just seeing some of the big restaurant groups, that this could become more of a corporate type of direction, not necessarily what our father was saying.

‍

Orlando Napolitano [00:03:56]:

Another point is, growing up, me and my brother were always surrounded by entrepreneurs. Everyone that was at the family table was either an electrician, if he was a lawyer, he owned his own law firm. So, like growing up, me and my brother, like, we're going to be an entrepreneur one day, we're going to open up our own business. We just never knew what. But when we saw that opportunity, like Joey mentioned, we're like, you know what? Let's do it. We took an ten day blitz trip in Italy, mostly in the north and the middle of Italy, studied it, and came back and said, you know what? Let's. Let's do this. And we did.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:04:25]:

That's amazing. It's funny how sometimes you can't escape fate, right? Like, you push away from the hospitality space with a restaurant industry in banking and then ended up right back in it. But I like how you mentioned bringing that different spin to it. I think a lot of people sometimes have the dream of opening up their own spot, whether it's coffee shop, a restaurant, a bar, you name it. And so I love to hear, from your perspective, how did you go from being in a banking industry, a corporate job? I'm sure it was a comfortable job, so to speak. How did you go from that to saying, what effort? Diving into the restaurant space, which is not an easy space.

‍

Joey Napolitano [00:04:59]:

You know, I think my brother touched on it. We always had that entrepreneurial itch. We always wanted to create something and work on it and see it flourish. That in its own gives you satisfaction. But it's not for everyone, for sure, because when you're building something from scratch, there's gonna be a lot of ups and downs, and it's how you face those downs that it's gonna bring you back up again. And like the shift from being a banker to being a restaurant owner, a banker. It's very bureaucratic. Your days are very routine, and you usually have one task for very few tasks, but you have to do it well, and you have to do it repetitively and keep on doing it to hit your targets, to hit your quotas.

‍

Joey Napolitano [00:05:36]:

When we opened Bertelli, you have to wear different hats. One day you're a chef and that you're a web developer. So it's just be able to adapt and be able to face different challenges head on. And luckily for me, we were two, so we always had the opportunity to feed off each other's ideas, to question others motives, which I think just helped Borteli, especially during this past year, which is the COVID year, is very difficult. We're still hanging on.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:05:59]:

Absolutely. Yeah.

‍

Orlando Napolitano [00:05:59]:

I think having the banking and financial backing actually helped us because it helped us build a business plan, it helped us structure the business. Even though it's a startup in its one location, everything is very structured. So that background, we've just carried it forward into a restaurant environment. And I really just think anybody could do anything in life. You just have to be willing to just take the punches and keep moving forward. And I think anyone in the restaurant industry took one hell of a punch this year. We get out of it and we move forward in mid 2021.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:06:29]:

Yeah, I hear you. It was funny, the analogy that I gave a friend. We were just talking about how Quebec has been handling of the pandemic, specifically how they've been forgetting, in a sense, about the hospitality industry. And a lot of people were saying, yeah, at least we're getting some help from the government. And the analogy I gave was, if someone beats you up and you're on the floor, and then you were thankful because they gave you a band aid and some rubbing alcohol. It's like, I appreciate it. It's better than nothing. It's tough when you're taking one hell of a beating to be grateful for a little bit of help when you're literally choking.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:06:59]:

Right. We deal with hundreds and hundreds of restaurants and we see it. Like most restaurants, they don't have cash flow for months to come. Most restaurants are operating maybe one, two if you're really efficient, maybe three months out. So it's a very tough industry with tight margins. And mishandling it from a government perspective can really crush a business. But I want to get a little more practical right now. And because it's so fresh in your minds, I'd love to maybe share with our listeners the journey you went through.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:07:26]:

So why don't we jump a little into how did it go from idea? Right. You guys are both working in the banking industry. This concept comes up. You got this idea. Walk us through the actual steps. What did you do from idea phase coming up with a name to basically day one? I'd love to hear that process because it's somewhat fresh in your mind.

‍

Orlando Napolitano [00:07:44]:

The first thing was you were doing multiple tasks at the same time. So our box manufacturers, he's based in Italy, so we had to speak with him, see how many boxes we need to order. Has a minimum. And the magic number was 35,000. And there was the recipe part. So we did a lot of R and D. Like, what are we going to launch with? And during the R and D process, it really was, if it doesn't pass, Joey and my tastes are, if we don't like it, then it doesn't go on the menu.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:08:10]:

Right. And I want to stop you just there for a second just because when. When Joey and Orlando talk about their taste palate, I can attest to this. So as I mentioned, we're good friends and I've been to their house several times and it's really true because they grew up in an environment where their dad was a chef and the muamma was, let's say, unofficially a chef, but pretty much still an amazing cook. And so you grew up in an italian household where you're always eating well. And I mean always. Like, I've been at their house on holidays and obviously that was five course meal and unbelievable. So quick shout out to Gennaro and Emilia.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:08:42]:

But that aside, what was amazing was even on a regular basis, if it was middle of the week, a Wednesday or Thursday, I'd be at their house. And the food was unreal. And so I think growing up in an environment where, in a sense, you're spoiled, but because of the caliber of the food, you do have a certain threshold, and it's great to see that's been reflected in the actual products at Broatelli.

‍

Orlando Napolitano [00:09:03]:

And then I would say another part was location. Me and joy really went on it ourselves, trying to find a location, and we thought about a food court. Right? So we were studying the path in Toronto, and we're like, it would be cool to be in a food court setting. To start off, our mindset was, you're going to get at least a minimum clientele that's going to reach out to you as a new brand in the city. And from that, it was the construction, which me and Joey knew absolutely nothing about. I could tell you some stories later on. I don't know if you want to know when the challenge is at that point, but some funny stories. What happened over there.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:09:35]:

Yeah, I think it's always helpful to learn about people's journey, and I've said this before, but it's great to learn with your own mistakes, but sometimes it's also great to learn from other people's mistakes. And so for our listeners in the early days, you started what are maybe some mistakes or fumbles you made along the way that you can share with our listeners? You mentioned coming up with a name to ordering, setting things up with suppliers to construction.

‍

Joey Napolitano [00:09:58]:

I think in terms of the early mistakes, we both were educated, we both went to university, but they don't really teach you how to read construction plan. They don't teach you the ins and outs of plumbing, electrical work. When the landlord sends you landlord's work and you're reading the voltage and the amps of your huts, and you'll know what you're reading because is this sufficient for my needs? You'll know what your needs are. You're just boiling water.

‍

Orlando Napolitano [00:10:21]:

Yeah.

‍

Joey Napolitano [00:10:22]:

So I think that in itself was a learning curve. I think we're better prepared going forward than what we were before. That being said, you know, we still have much to learn because we really know for one tower, maybe it's different for any location you go to. So I think that was the biggest hurdle going up, and the biggest eye opener was really the construction limbo and negotiating landlords work when you really didn't have that experience before, and it's not something that you're taught in school. So we didn't know where to get that experience from. And you only know once you do it.

‍

Orlando Napolitano [00:10:53]:

I have a funny story over there. So when we got our construction quotes, like, we signed our lease, now it's time for a fixturing period. It's gonna start on this specific date. So we gotta get all our quotes out. So here I am, construction, holidays, I'm on vacation, right, with my wife, and I'm just opening up my laptop and I'm like, I'm gonna get some quotes from certain contractors. And I get the price. And my heart is about to fall and my wife's calling me like, hey, Rolando, you ready? We're gonna go out. I'm like, leave me alone right now at this computer screen.

‍

Orlando Napolitano [00:11:20]:

And I'm thinking to myself, Rotelli pastebar is dead. Before it even started, I was just like staring at the figures and contemplating to myself, while I'm walking down the streets on this quote unquote vacation, stressful vacation. I'm just thinking to myself, like, we're dead. It's over. But luckily we got back and they showed to Joey and we just look at each other, oh, we're still going to do this. So we were able to go back to the bank, plead with RBC. Trust us, we're not going to screw this up. You got to give us more money.

‍

Orlando Napolitano [00:11:48]:

And luckily it pulled through and we had a great banker by the name of Michael Bahu who really threw a Hail Mary and caught it. And here we are today.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:11:56]:

That's amazing. I would imagine in general in construction. But I'm curious, with your case, was it somewhat on budget or was there a lot of surprises like, ah, we didn't see this coming? Or was there a lot of misty and added costs that were unforeseen?

‍

Joey Napolitano [00:12:09]:

I think the biggest unforeseen cost was the ventilation. Because the ventilation needs to be a specific type. Because you're in such a big tower, they have standards that they have to follow and needs to connect with their fire code. So if there's a fire in the 38th floor, it's going to shut down your ventilation. So there needs to be a two way flow, communication. And that was a big surprise because of, of that cost. And that was the reason why we needed to go back to the bank. But these are lessons that we learned and we were able to overcome in that first year.

‍

Joey Napolitano [00:12:42]:

But like I said, every spot is going to be different. Every spot is going to have their own construction challenges. Even talking to other people in the industry, it's not always a cookie cutter formula. It depends on the status of the building and what the landlord is going to put into it.

‍

Orlando Napolitano [00:12:55]:

I speak to guys that have 1215 restaurants, and they tell you that they're still learning. So I think Joey nails it. There's no. It's not a copy paste. Maybe your equipment and your layout of your store is, but not when it comes to the build out.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:13:08]:

There'll definitely be lessons that you learn and apply as you go, but they'll always be new lessons that'll come up. And, like, one of the things I want to touch on real quick was the standard you guys have when it comes to quality of food. So I wanted to take a minute or two and really showcase your menu. So just to chat a bit about your popular items, just to give our guests an idea of the type of dishes they can expect from Rotelli pasta bar.

‍

Joey Napolitano [00:13:30]:

Yeah, we think in terms of pasta, I think we have a wide variety of menu options for people that like the creamy stuff, pesto based, and even tomato sauce, but with a twist. I think one of our dishes was even inspired from my dad's restaurant, and we even named the dish after my dad's restaurant. So it's. If you go to our menu, you'll see casanopoly, and it's really a dish that was very popular with clients. Cause they. Oh, my God. A dish that has dried figs. It's undried tomatoes, golden raisins, dark raisins, cherry tomatoes, all infused.

‍

Joey Napolitano [00:13:58]:

And you're sauteing in a nice tomato sauce with gran padam and parmesan cheese. So the quality of our ingredients is really emphasized in the pasta box. And that's one very popular dish. I think the one that's our best seller is our carbonera with egg yolk grilled all italian pancetta. We do have a wide variety of pasta boxes that will accommodate any taste palate.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:14:20]:

Amazing. And I guess at this point, because of what's going on, I'm assuming you guys are doing a lot more take out than normal. So I'd love to hear about how you guys have adapted. And I know in general, it's so hard, but during this climate, like, what kind of things have you guys done to try to help people out there? If there's anything that's worked or not worked.

‍

Orlando Napolitano [00:14:38]:

Yeah. When COVID first struck the first wave, nobody knew what this virus was, so we shut down the operations. It was March 26, 2020. And during that month, me and my brother were just talking to each other probably, like, ten times a day, and, like, are we gonna even get through this? Is it even possible? So what we decided then was like, you know what we're shut, but we still gotta pay rent. We still gotta try to survive. So we came up with an online ordering platform, delivery. So it's all frozen plaques of pasta, either family portion or individually packed sauces that also prepackaged like joy was talking about. We package it and we delivered.

‍

Orlando Napolitano [00:15:15]:

And what it is, essentially, is you go onto our website, you select what you want, and within 24 to 48 hours, we'll deliver it to you. And it's just for the residents on the island of Montreal. So that was our first step that we did during the COVID crisis just to get through. And luckily, Montreal supported us, and we were able to generate some sales through that. And then we opened up back to store. It was end of June, and we're operating on COVID hours. So it's really just from 830 till 330. And we're on all the platforms, like ubereats, Doordash ritual.

‍

Orlando Napolitano [00:15:46]:

And it's slow. But I do see that there's a difference between the first wave and the second wave. I think in the first wave people are really afraid to order takeout. And that's why we saw a lot of people cooking from home and baking bread. And the second wave, I see that people are. Become a lot more comfortable, not with the virus itself, but with dealing and going on your day to day and having. Having that virus as a shot over your head. But I think people are a lot more comfortable with takeout, which is a good thing for restaurants.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:16:12]:

No, it's funny you mentioned that, because I think even myself, the first wave, every time I had groceries came into the house, I'm there washing the groceries, disinfecting, washing everything. And then news kind of came out where you don't really need to wash it anymore. And looking back, because we didn't know anything about the first wave, it was a lot scarier. But you're right, there is some comfort in the second wave where, okay, at least there's some stats in terms of survival rate and in terms of what to watch out for and how to be careful. So that definitely helps in terms of people's perception. One of the things that I always like doing as an exercise, even for myself, is I always think about what advice would I give to myself today to past Angelo? So I'd love to hear from your point of view, and we can go one by one, maybe advice President Orlando and Joey would give to two year ago. Joey in Orlando.

‍

Orlando Napolitano [00:17:00]:

You want to take the question first?

‍

Joey Napolitano [00:17:01]:

Sure, yeah. The advice that I guess I would give myself was two years ago is you just got to expect the unexpected and just be willing to adapt on the fly. Not just when we first opened, we expected a certain number of traffic, and we realized, oh, we're in a standalone tower. It doesn't really connect to the underground city of Montreal. So the traffic flow wasn't what we anticipated. So we needed to really adapt how we were going to cope with this. And we literally focused on corporate catering, and we went door to door to all the offices pretty much in all major towers downtown, and to get, to get clients. And then the word of mouth grew as the year went on and our corporate catering became like 30, 35% of our business.

‍

Joey Napolitano [00:17:47]:

And if we weren't able to adapt and to realize and willing to do this in order to keep our heads above water, we wouldn't even be here. So I would say always be willing to adapt, always be willing to see potential and keep the door always open.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:18:00]:

That makes a ton of sense. Makes a ton of sense in Orlando. What about you? What would you tell two year younger Orlando?

‍

Orlando Napolitano [00:18:07]:

Stay at the bank?

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:18:08]:

COVID is fair enough.

‍

Orlando Napolitano [00:18:09]:

I didn't have COVID in my projections, that's for sure.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:18:11]:

Right. Yeah, I don't think anyone did, so I hear you.

‍

Orlando Napolitano [00:18:14]:

No, but I think Joey just nailed it over there. I think he summed it up, be open, be ready for the unexpected. Be willing to take in the punches and keep chipping away. I'm a strong believer that if you just keep chipping away, you don't give up. The tide's gonna turn at one point, so you just gotta keep chipping away.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:18:30]:

Yeah, 100%, I think. And this is not only for the restaurant space, I think as a whole, just entrepreneurs in general, that's one of the qualities of an entrepreneur. It's being able to adapt quickly. I've seen it, for me, I've seen it a lot in the tech scene where you're adapting left and right, even for us personally. Right. Yes, we're in software, but our software at Wisc is literally for the restaurant and bar space. If you look at our financials, has been pretty much mirrored to what's going on in the industry. So every time there's a lockdown, follow the curve, so to speak.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:18:57]:

It's definitely how do you adapt? And for us, we've been lucky that because we can theoretically sell anywhere we've had a chance. Okay, maybe focus on areas or geographies that are open. So that that's been a relief, that we can focus on Texas or Florida, where sometimes with a physical location you have certain limitations I'd love to get into, maybe. What do you guys see in the future? I know it's a hard question to ask now because, you know, we're in the middle of a second lockdown here in Montreal. So it is a tough question. As entrepreneurs, usually you're a visionary of some respect. And so where do you guys see the future of broatelli? So what do you guys see coming in the next maybe year, two years, three years?

‍

Orlando Napolitano [00:19:34]:

So we had to make a decision, like, throughout this year, my brother really had a heart to heart talk. And do we fight through this, or do we pull the plug? And we're. We pretty much said that if we're going to fight through this, it's because we're going to keep growing, and maybe we don't have the same ambitions of what we previous had, but we got to keep moving forward. So right now, I'd say our short term goal, and we do believe it's a very achievable goal, is in 2021 to open up a second Broatelli pasta bar in Montreal. So we're looking for something street front, and we have a broker that we mandated the assignment with to present this location. So we're hoping by end of summer, early fall, Bertelli Pasta bar two is up and running. So that's a realistic short term goal. And then from there, it's then we're going to go back to the ambitious goal.

‍

Orlando Napolitano [00:20:19]:

So then after. From there, we're hoping COVID is gone. We're hoping the momentum is going to be full steam ahead. And we think this industry, once it's fully open, it's going to just explode. People are going to go back to seeing shows, people are going to go back to sporting events, university kids are going to be back at school. So we do see, like, a wave, and I think there'll be a big momentum towards industry. So we're hoping to open many stores at that point. And I think that since we started, we always said one day we think this is a concept that would work well.

‍

Orlando Napolitano [00:20:45]:

Also, the long term dream is to even expand to the United States.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:20:49]:

That'd be amazing. And I think one thing that's really cool about your concept is that it's very efficient in a sense. Right. It's the way you guys built it. And you don't have to give away your secrets here, but maybe you could just touch on the importance of having an easy process for scalability and things you've implemented on that end.

‍

Joey Napolitano [00:21:06]:

I think that's what made our concept so appealing to us was that the quick service industry is not having to pay one executive chef a high salary. And literally, you could teach anyone to cook the food and cook it well and at the standard that you want. So everything we do is standardized, even though we only have one location. Like my brother said, we do have other goals and everything we would do, if it doesn't make sense to do this, and if it doesn't work with three 4510 stores, then we're not going to do it in one store. So that's the logic behind everything. So even our past, it's proportioned. The boiler has set cooking times, so every pasta, we already did a lot of R and D. Okay, spaghetti is going to cook for 30 seconds.

‍

Joey Napolitano [00:21:50]:

This is going to cook for a minute and a half. So everything is very standardized and it's very teachable to anyone who's willing to learn. We have students that are cooking for 150 people, and obviously they were supervised, but it's very standardized and very easy to apply and to replicate.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:22:08]:

Yeah, that makes sense. And I think the time you guys put into that process of making it repeatable is going to make it ultimately scalable when you open up two, three restaurants. And I'm sure you'll learn other things, as we discussed. But standardizing the menu is definitely a good start.

‍

Orlando Napolitano [00:22:22]:

Yeah.

‍

Joey Napolitano [00:22:23]:

And just to add talking to one executive of Starbucks, and she was saying, quality is always going to be very important, but just as important as efficiency is to be able to service your customer at a timely manner without compromising quality. I think that's just the key, you know, for quick service restaurant, because they're not going there for the same experience of fine dining. It's a totally different experience, but doesn't mean they don't want to eat well, but just they want to eat well and get out now.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:22:49]:

It makes sense. You value the time a little more. At a fine dining, you can sit down for 2 hours, no problem. But with quick service, it's that you want quick service. And how do you balance that quick service with quality? Because on the flip side, I don't think people would be too happy if it was extra quick. But the flow food was not correct either. So it's that fine line, which makes a ton of sense. And we talked about where he's heading and where you guys see Rotelli going in the next year, two years, and in the near future.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:23:13]:

I'd love to get your perspective. You guys are in the industry, you guys are living it. Where do you see the QSR space in general heading. And do you think there's any habits that kind of were learned during the pandemic that will stick? When I say habit, like example, a lot of people that didn't do online orders now do online orders. So do you think any habits that kind of picked up during the pandemic will stick? And where do you see, from your perspective, the QSR industry heading?

‍

Orlando Napolitano [00:23:40]:

I think QSR is all about convenience. So if people are home, the convenience is how do you bring the food to me home. But I don't see people working home forever because I think most people like to interact. There just maybe won't be that same traffic flow when it comes to an office environment as there was pre COVID. So I think it's managing a balance between both. You'll have the physical presence of the client coming to your store, and then you'll have all the platforms the Uber eats, in other word, actually going to probably pick up momentum, because if people are home and they're working and they're doing meetings, they don't have the time to cook themselves lunch, but they're still going to want to eat something good and move on with your day. So I see that part of the business, whereas before, maybe it was 10% of your business, all the platforms, maybe that's going to increase over time. And other than that, it's just more of a digital.

‍

Orlando Napolitano [00:24:27]:

I think before COVID there was already some companies in San Francisco where the whole front was all like, screens. I forget the name of the company, but it was really like you walk into the store, you were just tapping screens. You just had a kitchen staff. So are we going to get there within five years? I don't see that for everyone. But, you know, maybe really long term, I could see more of a digital president hit QSR.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:24:48]:

And Joey, any insight?

‍

Joey Napolitano [00:24:51]:

Yeah, I think automation allowed touch on it. We saw the pizza was being made by a robot. Maybe that was going to be 1015 years out. With COVID it's going to accelerate it, and it's going to be much sooner than we anticipate. So I feel like the world was always heading to a self automated, way less human reliant. But I feel like with COVID I think this is true not only in QSR, but I think in all industries that we're going to be more dependent on artificial intelligence on our day to day lives. Employers getting these machines instead of staffing because staffing won't call in sick. Doesn't have to worry about kid, you don't have these headaches with a robot, I'm sure there'll be other ones, like not working or malfunctioning, but.

‍

Joey Napolitano [00:25:30]:

But I think COVID may accelerate that movement much sooner than we thought.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:25:34]:

Yeah, I think you nailed it. I see it in that same lights where it was heading in the direction. But maybe what would have taken, let's say, ten years is now going to take five years, because people, you know, have adapted so much quicker out of necessity. And I think it's accelerated adopting technology.

‍

Joey Napolitano [00:25:49]:

Okay.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:25:50]:

I love it. So one of the ways we love to end off this podcast is something called last day on earth. Really simple. If it was your last day on earth, what would be your go to meal and your go to drink?

‍

Joey Napolitano [00:26:03]:

Okay, so last day on earth. Go to meal. It's hard because I have so many, but I guess I have to go with my birthday meal. My mom makes the same thing for me every birthday, and that's brasho bracho. Everyone doesn't know what it is. It's like beef filets that's rolled up and stuffed with parsley, parmesan, pine nuts, raisins. And it's slowly cooked in a tomato sauce, so it becomes like a ragu meat sauce. And you have it with pasta.

‍

Joey Napolitano [00:26:31]:

I love that. It's always been one of my favorite. You guys know I'm a pasta guy. Definitely the last meal needs to have pasta in it. And if I had to go with the last drink, I've always been a vodka martini guy. I'm gonna stick with that. Angelo knows it. With our go to drink going out, that's my one two combo.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:26:49]:

Awesome. What about you, Orlando?

‍

Orlando Napolitano [00:26:51]:

I'm going to join the party of the vodka martini. Martini is going around. Let's make it three. I'll go with a nice vodka martini over there. And, yeah, I'm a pretty simple guy. I like seafood. So a nice spaghetti with clams, with white wine, parsley, garlic, saute that in there, take a nice vodka to head on up. Spaghetti, pasta.

‍

Orlando Napolitano [00:27:11]:

I'm a happy trooper.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:27:12]:

I love having you guys on the show. I think it brings a fresh perspective of people who are still in the juice. Two years in, I think you guys crushed your first year. Second year is obviously tough with COVID but that's across the board. But as new restauranters, so to speak, I think you guys have achieved a lot. And so, any closing words to people listening who are thinking about getting into the space or new to the space?

‍

Joey Napolitano [00:27:33]:

Yeah, I would just say do your market research before what your concept is. Study it thoroughly. Make sure their product is good, and make sure there's demand for whatever you're cooking up. And also, one advice that I realize, in terms of marketing, especially as a startup, your funds are limited. So for sure, you need a social media presence. You need your Instagram, you need your Facebook. When it comes to paying for ads for that, your budgets are not as high as other companies. So people are getting bombarded by Instagram ads all the time.

‍

Joey Napolitano [00:28:04]:

So your ad gets lost and it's not seen. So the effect is not there. So we'll. We did is. We did ads within our communities. So, for example, we sponsor McGill events where students would do case competitions, and we would be one of the restaurant sponsors there. And that drive a lot of business. Even though it's outside the box, it's not your typical Instagram social media platform.

‍

Orlando Napolitano [00:28:29]:

That helps a lot.

‍

Joey Napolitano [00:28:30]:

So really focus on communities, especially when you're starting off word of mouth, and that's going to do a world of difference when you're just, you know, getting your feet wet. That'll be my advice.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:28:40]:

And, Orlando, any closing advice from you?

‍

Orlando Napolitano [00:28:42]:

Yeah, for me. You know what? If you guys, it's whoever's out there listening and wants to jump into the space, it's if you believe in your concept and you really feel it in your gut that this could work, and you're gonna have a lot of people, before you even start, they're gonna tell you it doesn't make sense. Who wants to eat pasta from a box? You know, we used to get all the time? You, my brother. So I think if you believe in it and you're willing to put the time and effort to make it happen, just go for it.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:29:06]:

Love it, guys. It was great having both of you on the show. I think we are due in the near future for a vodka martini, but I really appreciate you guys having here and sharing those words with. With our listeners.

‍

Joey Napolitano [00:29:17]:

Thanks. Thanks, Angelo. Great host. Cheers.

‍

Angelo Esposito [00:29:21]:

All right, cheers, guys.

‍