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From Sicilian Roots to New York Triumph: Massimo Mannino's Culinary Journey · Go Big with Gib Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Go Big with Gibb podcast, where we talk to professionals, business owners and entrepreneurs about their big wins.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Today, I've got a very special guest with me, massimo Menino.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Massimo, how are you today?
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Good, how are you?
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Thank you for having me here.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: We just absolutely love your restaurants and I wanted to have you on the podcast for a really long time, so thank you for having us here today.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Thank you, tell us a little bit about yourself.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Yes, my name is Massimo Mannino.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: I'm owner of Marabella and Nino Italian Restaurant.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: We're family owner.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Now, it's my understanding that you grew up in Italy, is that correct?
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Yes, I grew up in Sicily, italy, a little town like 10 miles away from the big city, palermo.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: We were talking earlier, I think you told me that you grew up on a farm.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about that.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: My father was a farmer, so I grew up on a farm.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: From my father's side for my mama's side it was they would make a cheese maker.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: So I grew up on a boat way, making food and everything from scratch.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I grew up on a farm.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: On a farm you learn the hard work, you learn how to appreciate everything.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Come from the much work behind something from mother nature, I would say Always got passion to cook.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: So since a little, always try to make my own pasta and my own sauce but always making a mess.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: So my mom would always complain about how much mess you would make, but overall she was helping me and learning so much a little bit how many siblings did your mother have?
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: She has 10 siblings and they all kind of restaurant business.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: They were at one point and yeah, that was my passion, even it was the way I liked to you know it was more going to the restaurant business and learning the cooking.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: It was my aspiration to go there learn for them a little bit and I did it.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: I went to Germany, worked for them a little bit and learned the restaurant business that I've.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: In the beginning it was a little hard, you know.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Like I say, sure, but like be as a young kid working on a little in the restaurant.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: The other day everybody celebrated you working.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: It was harder, you know.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Even as a kid, you had a passion for cooking.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Yes, and you had a lot of exposure to the restaurant business, because your mother had 10 siblings that were all in the business.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're all in the same environment business.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: What kind of farming did your father do?
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: They would grow olive and pear and lemon.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: That's the three things they were growing as a farmer.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: When did you first visit the United States?
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: I came when I visited my wife.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: She was, you know, my girlfriend.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: I came here in 1992.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: I came to visit her and then he ended up to stay and a year later we got married and went back to Italy, do the church, the ceremony there and come back here.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Had it always been a dream of yours to come to the United States to visit America.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, visit America was one of the dreams because I grew up watching all the American movies, everything.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, it was one of the things that I.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a dream to come and see America.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: That's for sure, I think you said that you came here in 1992.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Is that correct?
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: 1992,.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and how old would you have been at that time?
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: I think I was 19.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: About 19 years old.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Did you meet your wife here in America or did you meet her in Italy?
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: I met my wife in Italy.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: She was there on vacation in the summertime and we met each other.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: Actually, if you want to know a little story about I met my wife she was three years before that, so I was 14 and she was 13, but we never talked to each other.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: And three years later, we end up to meet each other again.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: That's, that's the way.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: yeah, I met a up there in sicily your father-in-law was the one that originally started the marabella up in new york right yes, okay, so that's your wife's father, right?
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Yes, and then I believe that your wife has, uh, two brothers, two brothers that're your partners in the business right.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Yes, Okay.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Is your wife also Italian?
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, she's born in New York, but yeah.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: But her father was born in Italy yeah, come from the same town that I come from, you know and they were friends with my father too.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: They were, you know, in a young time.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: So they were friends with my father too in the young time.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: So they were friends.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: Plus, they got a bakery up there in Sicily and so we would buy bread for them and my father they would buy, you know, because he left before I was born, anyway, to the United States.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: But my father was a friend and they were, you know, sure, so they were, you know.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: So they were family, friends and y'all knew each other from that.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: You and your wife, you know, dated for a period of time.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Then you got married in Italy and then you moved over to the United States and I believe you moved to New York.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: City, right yeah, New York.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: And that's where the original Marabella started.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Is that?
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: right yeah, Marabella is in Queens, New York.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Massimo, what was it like growing up in Sicily and then moving to New York City?
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, what was that transition like?
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: It's a big thing, whatever you see in a movie and the big building.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: What was that transition like?
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: It's a big thing, whatever you see in a movie and the big building.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: And it was yeah, it was a shock, but, you know, nice.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: It was nice and worked for my father-in-law.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: It was even.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: You know, they welcomed me so good and learning so much for them.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was good, good impact for me and learn so much from in my skill cooking and he teach me law and I learned from other place but yeah, when your father-in-law started in new york.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: What role did he play in the development of little italy?
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: he.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: He went to new New York and worked for this place.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: He went to the Italian Food Center in New York and started to introduce the bread stuff for Inosa to do it.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: That store would never make it before it became so popular.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: Everybody would come from everywhere to buy his bread, whatever he was doing to bring it back away People that live in Pennsylvania or away.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: They would go there, buy and go back.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: And then a lot of celebrities they're going, like Sylvester Stallone.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Frank Sinatra, I think you mentioned.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so introduce something, a good product, that was not there yet.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: How was it that you ended up in Greenville, North Carolina?
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: So my father-in-law he has a brother who lives here.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: So we came one day after 9-11, we come to visit him.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: We were going to move somewhere somehow from New York because of the situation, but we came here to visit him.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: We liked the place.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: We came here to visit them.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: We liked the place, we liked the weather, it was good, and from there it was a story about going pass by from Washington.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: My cousin was doing some work in that area and I saw this building for sale that I liked it.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: I don't even know nothing about Washington or Greenville, Little Washington right.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: It was my first day and I see that and we don't know anything about it.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: But we make an offer of that building and they accept it and two years later I moved here and opened up the place and everything was good.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: The first Mirabella in North Carolina was located in little washington right and you still have that location open now.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: How many marabella locations do you have currently?
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: it's four marabella now okay, there's two.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: There's two in greenville, one in wilmington and in washington one in washington.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: What year was it when you opened nino's?
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: I don't remember exactly.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: I think it was like almost nine years ago.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: As far as the different restaurants, how do you manage all of that?
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, I know you've got two brother-in-laws that help you, that are your partners.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Is it hard for you to manage?
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: You know, because you've got four Marabella locations and Nino's right, so there's five total restaurants.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, five total.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: We all got time, we all got job to do it.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: You know we have all everybody's doing his own job.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: Overall, we have a good employee and good managing side.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: That's the only secret it can be.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: Have a good employee and we're blessed to.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: That's one of the key, you know.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: Hire the right employee.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: This episode of Go Big with Gibb is brought to you by Irons Equity.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: At Irons Equity, we specialize in helping investors like you create long-term generational wealth and save money on taxes through recession-resistant real estate investments that create passive income for you and your family.
• 9:37
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• 9:43
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• 9:44
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• 9:47
  Speaker 1: If you had to say, like, what is the most popular dish, do you think at Nino's?
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: At Nino's, oh, yeah, well, I think chicken saltimbocca Okay.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: It's one of the most popular here and catcher pepper would be the second one probably.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: Saltimbocca is a very different dish.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: I saw my brother-in-law he made that.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: He come out with that dish.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: It's very.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Can get anywhere besides here.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: I eat, you know, here at Nino's all the time.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: I love to bring my kids here, especially on their birthdays.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: We come here for different reasons.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: Obviously, the food is fantastic, but it's also the people and the way that you've treated us.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: What do you think is so special about Nino's?
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: I think it's the.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Obviously, the food is delicious, the people are wonderful, but it's like I feel like this is like a community gathering place where people just feel very comfortable and you have so many good relationships in the community.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: We treat everybody like a family and that's the key.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: Normally, who's coming here for me is support me, and I give my heart to anybody, no matter.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: You know, I don't know what to say, but for me it's family, everybody coming here and I welcome everybody the same kind of way and we all have that mentality as a family.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: You know, you come here to the dinner time.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: It's like coming to our house, you know, because we live here, we live in this place, we live in the restaurant, so that's, I mean mean my opinion, what it would be and the community in general, like, uh, it's been doing lots to us and a pandemic time is.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, we'd be blessed to live in in this community because I don't think if it was another place, another area, we'd be surviving the support we got from the community.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you definitely have the heart of the community and a tremendous amount of support from the community here.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: I love the pizza at Marabella and I order Marabella at least once a week, if not more.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, I just absolutely love it.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: What would you say is the most popular dish at Marabella?
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of a?
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love to get the thin crust pepperoni pizza and I get it well done and I order it like every Friday night.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: But what is the most popular?
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Grandma?
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: pizza and I order it like every Friday night.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: But what is the most popular Grandma Grandma pizza?
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: It's a thin crust and a pan pizza with a milky mozzarella, fresh mozzarella.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: That's the most popular pizza.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: I won an award for that pizza too.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: What was the award called?
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Is that the Southeast Pizza Champion?
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Southeast Pizza.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Champion, you've also won the award for the Pasta.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Showdown World, world champion and I believe you've won that twice and Sal has won it once as well.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Is that right?
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's one of my goals.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: To win that competition was one of my going for, and we've done it twice.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: We've done it twice.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Sal's done it once.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: three times total it was very I really that's one of my proud thing that you know, just for myself.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: It's an international competition, people from all over the world, and you won first place two times and Sal has won first place one time.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, with.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Saltimbocca.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: Okay with the chicken.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: Saltimbocca yeah.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: As far as the future of your businesses, do you see yourself opening other locations in the future?
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Are you looking to grow and expand, or is that kind of unknown at this time?
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: Right now.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: It's unknown at this time, but definitely who knows?
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: You know, everything can change, but right now that's where we are.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: Spend more time with the family, because it takes a lot of time away from everybody.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: Your restaurants are no secret to the folks here in Greenville.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, everybody knows how wonderful your restaurants are, but for anybody that's listening to the podcast that has never eaten at Nino's or Marabella, I can't say enough good things about it Literally some of the best food that you'll ever get in Greenville, north Carolina, really anywhere in the world.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: I really appreciate you being on.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to this episode of Go Big with Gibb.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: If you haven't already, go follow us on social media at Gibb Irons.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: We'll see you next time.