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Gaetano's Ristorante: An Italian Vegas Staple | 353 · Hey BigHead: The Vegas Local Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_02: Working with my father was very difficult because he had a very old school mindset.
0:05
SPEAKER_02: It took 15 years of me working with him five, six days a week, for him to finally say, like, hey, I'm proud of my son Nick.
0:13
SPEAKER_02: Like, he's doing this, he's doing that.
0:14
SPEAKER_02: And it like every day I try to do something better.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: Welcome back, boys and girls, to another episode of the Hey Big Head Show, the Vegas Local Podcast.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: How do you feel about that full name, Julie?
0:27
SPEAKER_03: I like when you use the full legal.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the full legal.
0:30
SPEAKER_03: Full legal name.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: The government name.
0:32
SPEAKER_03: The government name.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: Well, hey, listen, I gotta I have a problem.
0:37
SPEAKER_03: Which one?
0:38
SPEAKER_00: Well, one of many problems.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: I really have to eat before we have guests that are restaurant related on the show because I look at their menu before they come on and I'm starving.
0:48
SPEAKER_03: I've been having that problem all week, especially with today's guest, because as you know, I've been scouring the menu planning out what I'm gonna order when we go.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: What's the what's the menu that you're looking up?
0:58
SPEAKER_00: What which which restaurant are you looking at?
0:59
SPEAKER_03: Gaetanos Restaurante.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: Gaetano's Restaurant.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: I like the way you said that.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: Gaetano's Restaurante.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: Yes, we have owner Nick Palmeri here from Gaetanos.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the show, Nick.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: Welcome.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: Uh thank you for having me.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: Of course, man.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: Listen, I have to say from man to man, out of all the guests that we've had on, you may be the most stylish guest that we've had on.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: You have great style.
1:19
SPEAKER_02: I got it from my father.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: Is it?
1:21
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:22
SPEAKER_02: He uh he loved dressing nice.
1:25
SPEAKER_02: And um when I was a kid, he I remember my mom buying me like at Mervyn's or a department store that no longer exists, a uh a clip-on tie, and my dad like had a fit.
1:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, sure.
1:38
SPEAKER_02: And he taught me and my brothers how to tie a tie when we were like four years old.
1:43
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, I wear ties once in a while, but they're not as in as they used to be.
1:48
SPEAKER_02: More when when it gets like under 70 degrees, I start wearing ties.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: I love this.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: Well, listen, after the show, you have to give me the number of your tailor because I will whatever you have going on.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: I have no number.
1:57
SPEAKER_02: I just get one size that fits me ever since I've been 20 years old and it fits me.
2:02
SPEAKER_02: You've been the same physique ever since?
2:04
SPEAKER_00: I try.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: Um, listen, I'm also a little my my nerves are a little on edge because not only have you been on NPR before, which which by the way, we're following NPR, which is one hell of a follow-up.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, but also your restaurant, quote unquote, is Joe Rogan and Theo Vaughn's favorite outside of the the Vegas strip.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: They've said on the Joe Rogan show that Gaetano's is their favorite restaurant.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: That's correct.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: Did you expect them to say that, or did it come as a shock when that came to you?
2:36
SPEAKER_02: Didn't come to a shock.
2:37
SPEAKER_02: So um we had a restaurant for 20 years before we moved to Las Vegas in Calabasas, California.
2:43
SPEAKER_02: And uh Joe lived probably 15 minutes away from the restaurant.
2:49
SPEAKER_02: So he would come every week.
2:52
SPEAKER_02: And it was actually one of the first places he took his um wife on a date.
2:57
SPEAKER_02: And when we sold it and moved, he was like really bummed out.
3:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, sure.
3:02
SPEAKER_02: Um, so the last time he came to the restaurant was in 2018 when that big uh Connor McGregor and um Khib fight happened, and he saw my dad, loved it.
3:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but he's like, man, I just want to come, you know, not so early.
3:19
SPEAKER_02: I like to come late at night.
3:21
SPEAKER_02: And long story short, I reached out to him about a year and a half ago, and I'm like, I got you, man.
3:27
SPEAKER_02: Whenever you want to come, my crew will be ready.
3:30
SPEAKER_02: And he comes all the time, loves it.
3:34
SPEAKER_02: The nicest human being you'd ever meet, very humble and uh really good down-to-earth dude.
3:40
SPEAKER_02: That's fantastic.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what a what a great connection to have.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: What a great uh, I guess, testimonial to you know, your restaurant, your service, your team, the legacy you guys have.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: That's huge.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I have to admit, the first time hearing about Guy Thomas, I haven't been to your restaurant yet, and I apologize.
3:59
SPEAKER_02: It's okay.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: Okay, good, okay, good.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but I the first time I heard about your restaurant, it wasn't from Joe Rogan.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't from Eric Gladstone saying, uh, from Feast of Friends, friend of the show, saying, Hey, you know, my uh friend Nick is gonna come on the show.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: It was a few years back, you made the news when another company on one of the delivery apps claimed to be you, or they That's correct.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: Can you explain what happened?
4:23
SPEAKER_00: Because I I still have a hard time kind of remembering exactly what happened.
4:26
SPEAKER_02: So it was like uh 2023.
4:28
SPEAKER_02: Um this story's crazy about that.
4:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so it was 2023, and um the delivery apps um went like gangbusters during COVID.
4:39
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
4:39
SPEAKER_02: Um, there were ghost kitchens popping up left and right.
4:43
SPEAKER_02: I even had a friend who had a gaming bar, and he's like, he did really good in gaming, but his food sales were garbage.
4:51
SPEAKER_02: And he was like, hey, um I only do about$1,200,$1,500 a month, uh, or I'm sorry,$1,200 or$1,500 a day in um food sales.
5:02
SPEAKER_02: Well, I have this commercial kitchen that is like run, like not even running.
5:08
SPEAKER_02: So he started a ghost kitchen out of that kitchen.
5:10
SPEAKER_02: Okay, and I'm like, and and all of a sudden I just start like looking around.
5:17
SPEAKER_02: Um, someone from the review journal hit me up and they're like, hey, someone's impersonating you right now.
5:22
SPEAKER_02: And then I knew like James Trees was being impersonated and all these other people, and I was like WTF, and it really pissed me off.
5:30
SPEAKER_02: So I look up the place.
5:31
SPEAKER_02: It was somewhere around like Chinatown off Dean Martin, and um they were serving, like they had photos, they were serving like burgers, fries, nuggets, wings.
5:44
SPEAKER_02: But then I like looked at this stuff and I'm like, I think they're buying it at like Sam's Club or maybe like Food for Less.
5:51
SPEAKER_02: It's like reheating.
5:53
SPEAKER_02: And then like I looked up the place and I'm like, ooh, and then I'm like, all right, I gotta put my foot down because I can't have my brand um be diminished by some dirt bag who's trying to, you know, use my name for their good.
6:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
6:11
SPEAKER_03: Well how do oh sorry.
6:12
SPEAKER_03: Oh no, go ahead, please.
6:13
SPEAKER_03: How do you address that?
6:13
SPEAKER_03: Like, do you address it just through the delivery app or I feel like the the delivery apps like the wild, wild west.
6:20
SPEAKER_02: Like the delivery apps really don't care to be honest with you.
6:24
SPEAKER_02: They just want to get money.
6:26
SPEAKER_02: They're they you know the the interesting thing is um I addressed my PR team, I addressed um the review journal, yeah, and then I got in touch with my uh attorney.
6:41
SPEAKER_02: But to sort of go back to the delivery apps, the interesting thing is like they have data on everybody who has the app.
6:53
SPEAKER_02: They have tracking data, they have everything.
6:55
SPEAKER_02: But when someone's breaking the law, it's like they act like they're yeah, they don't know anything.
7:00
SPEAKER_02: It's like I can't believe they did that.
7:02
SPEAKER_02: It's like dropping someone in the middle, like it's like dropping me in the middle of China and we like start speaking Chinese and are like, I don't, I don't have my iPhone, I don't have a translator, I don't know what I'm doing.
7:11
SPEAKER_02: But then it's like when when you tell them that, they're like, Oh, I don't know what you're talking about, I can't track it, I'm an idiot.
7:18
SPEAKER_02: You know, so yeah, we figured it out.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, listen, I'm I'm glad you got that resolved.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: There's only one and only Gaetanos, first of all.
7:25
SPEAKER_02: In in Las Vegas, there's a few around the country, there's a few around the country, but in Las Vegas, there's only one.
7:31
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
7:32
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: So you you briefly mentioned the the Calabasas, how you guys got started in Calabasas.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: It was your dad's restaurant, right?
7:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so crazy.
7:38
SPEAKER_02: I'll give you a little background about my father Gaetano and whatnot.
7:42
SPEAKER_02: So he was born in uh Jayla, Sicily, and uh post-World War II.
7:48
SPEAKER_02: And back then, you know, Roman Catholic, they have a bunch of kids, very poor.
7:52
SPEAKER_02: And it's like the more kids you have, the earlier they can work to support the family.
7:56
SPEAKER_02: Right.
7:57
SPEAKER_02: He started working for uh a bakery when he was 10 years old um to bring pastries to these cafes.
8:04
SPEAKER_02: Like people here, they think of cafes like sit-down, breakfast, lunch.
8:09
SPEAKER_02: Over there, cafes are like um baristas, liquor.
8:13
SPEAKER_02: Uh, they have a full bar with sandwiches, pastries, and that.
8:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
8:17
SPEAKER_02: So when he was 14, the owner of the cafe is like, man, you're bringing you you're a hustler, you know how to bring all this stuff.
8:23
SPEAKER_02: Started working there when he was 14, left home when he was 16, um, dropped out of school, and went to northern Italy and worked the Italian Riviera, and then he worked the Riviera two seasons and then he became an assistant to a captain on a merchant ship that traded goods all over the Mediterranean.
8:45
SPEAKER_02: He got on the cruise ships, met my mom, worked in Beverly Hills at this uh well-known Italian restaurant at the time called Adrianos, asking all these people at Adriano's.
8:55
SPEAKER_02: He was a major D um bartender, you know, server, he knew how to do everything.
8:59
SPEAKER_02: And he was like, Where um where do you live?
9:02
SPEAKER_02: And all these people were like, Oh, I live in Beverly Hills, I live in Bel Air, and all these people keep bringing up, like, oh, I live in Calabasas.
9:08
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and at the time, Calabasas was a horse property, like you could ride a horse down the road and tie it up and eat somewhere, you know.
9:17
SPEAKER_02: So my mom, who he met on the cruise ships, met, um grew up in San Fernando Valley, and my dad's like, I want to open up in Calabasas.
9:26
SPEAKER_02: My mom's like, You're crazy, you're out of your mind.
9:28
SPEAKER_02: But my dad saw a vision, yeah, because my dad not only was street smart, but he was a smart businessman.
9:35
SPEAKER_02: And he saw all these people with money living over there, yeah.
9:40
SPEAKER_02: And then eventually, like, we ended up moving there when I was three years old because like a lot of people who were like doctors, lawyers, white-collar professionals, they all wanted their kids to live in a safe environment in suburbia, right?
9:55
SPEAKER_02: So we had that restaurant for 20 years.
9:57
SPEAKER_02: Was he a good cook?
9:58
SPEAKER_02: He was an amazing cook.
9:59
SPEAKER_02: So a lot of the dishes that and recipes are his recipes passed down from his mom or what?
10:05
SPEAKER_02: You know what?
10:05
SPEAKER_02: If you're in if you live in Sicily and you're a horrible cook, you'll starve to death.
10:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's that's the thing.
10:12
SPEAKER_02: Oh my god, it's um but like because like all the ingredients are fresh, like farm to table.
10:16
SPEAKER_02: Um, he he was an amazing cook.
10:19
SPEAKER_02: And the thing is, it's like there wasn't one day where he was thinking of something new or trying to tweak something.
10:27
SPEAKER_02: And um, yeah, he he he was a really cool person because he was um, you know, like I I like to call myself a restaurantur, which is a dying breed.
10:37
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
10:38
SPEAKER_02: He was a true restaurateur because he knew how to bartend, he knew cook, uh wait, whatever.
10:44
SPEAKER_02: Uh he knew how to do everything.
10:46
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, so um that's how Gaetanos got started in California.
10:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and then um in 2001 we sold it.
10:55
SPEAKER_02: But the crazy story is we weren't supposed to have this one here.
11:02
SPEAKER_02: So what happened is my mom took care of me and my brothers, and she like day traded during the day.
11:10
SPEAKER_02: And as you know, from 1983 to 2001, the stock market went up like 1800% over those 20 years.
11:17
SPEAKER_02: And uh, we moved out here.
11:18
SPEAKER_02: My parents were gonna retire early 50s, and then oh one market crash happened, lost like 40-50 percent of their portfolio, and they're like, hey, let's just open up a restaurant again.
11:30
SPEAKER_02: And um, it was perfect timing for them because um myself and my two older brothers, we lived all lived out here.
11:37
SPEAKER_02: So we like started the restaurant all together as a family, which we never did.
11:42
SPEAKER_02: It was it was cool, but it was it's very stressful working for um a Sicilian father, a Jewish mother, and then like and like three brothers who like testosterone is through the roof.
11:54
SPEAKER_02: We'd be fighting every day with a lot of yelling.
11:56
SPEAKER_02: Oh, that was when like you remember like um American Chopper was out, all those like reality TV shows.
12:02
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
12:02
SPEAKER_02: We said if we had a reality TV show, like it would be the number one show.
12:07
SPEAKER_02: It was crazy, it was crazy but fun.
12:09
SPEAKER_02: And it was it it was a good time, entertaining, very entertaining.
12:12
SPEAKER_02: So the restaurant here opened up in 2002, sure.
12:17
SPEAKER_02: And I tell people nowadays, they're like, Have you been here a long time?
12:20
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, we opened up the restaurant a week after I graduated high school, and that's how long I've been working there.
12:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, good for you.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: Would you would you do anything else other than being in the restaurant business?
12:29
SPEAKER_00: I feel like once I tried many things.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: I I mean, but that's like you once you're in it and and you're invested in it and you have history in it too.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: I feel like it's so hard to get out of the restaurant business.
12:40
SPEAKER_02: It is so I I went to school for marketing.
12:43
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
12:43
SPEAKER_02: Thank God because it helped us out during COVID.
12:46
SPEAKER_02: But um, I try to go into sales, I try to go into uh financial advising with my oldest brother, I try to start up uh a couple businesses, and the restaurant business always brought me back because I'm not a nine to five person.
12:59
SPEAKER_02: I hate fluorescent lights in offices, and I like interacting with people and making people feel like they had the best meal they had that year, that week, that day.
13:11
SPEAKER_02: It just makes me happy.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: Every time you're out, they pull you back in.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's you know where that's from, Julie?
13:17
SPEAKER_00: No, Godfather three.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: Come on, Julie.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: She's too young for it.
13:21
SPEAKER_03: I've seen The Godfather.
13:23
SPEAKER_03: That's it.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to see Godfather three.
13:26
SPEAKER_03: Fair.
13:27
SPEAKER_03: Um but to that point of getting pulled back in, and you obviously are a restaurateur now.
13:32
SPEAKER_03: There was a time where you said that you did not want to be in the restaurant business because you wanted to travel and vacation and have time with your family.
13:39
SPEAKER_03: So, what was it that changed your mind and made you want to buy Gaetanos ultimately?
13:44
SPEAKER_02: So working with my father was very difficult because he had a very old school mindset.
13:53
SPEAKER_02: He didn't know how to use a computer.
13:55
SPEAKER_02: He knew how to use an iPhone, but not a computer.
13:57
SPEAKER_02: That's interesting.
13:58
SPEAKER_02: And um the thing is when you have a very old school um mentality, especially from like post-World War II, Sicily was like third world country like back then.
14:12
SPEAKER_02: And it's crazy.
14:14
SPEAKER_02: So when you have someone like me knowing trends and knowing things and doing stuff, and I'm like, hey, we need to do this, and he's like, You don't understand, I've been doing this for 40 or I've been doing this for 50 years, you don't tell me what to do, but I'm like that.
14:29
SPEAKER_02: I've been working for you since I've been 10 years old.
14:31
SPEAKER_02: Like I started in the restaurant business when I was 10.
14:34
SPEAKER_02: And um I wanted these changes, and he wouldn't he wouldn't listen to me.
14:40
SPEAKER_02: So the sort of the year that changed everything was 2017.
14:46
SPEAKER_02: Um, I did uh a bartending fine service course at Southern Glazers um with uh Francesco La Francone, my wife, myself, and some peers of mine.
15:02
SPEAKER_02: And it changed my whole perspective because it was like teaching you all about different spirits and cocktails and how you can present it at a restaurant.
15:13
SPEAKER_02: Like we never really had a um a cocktail list, like most of our customers at the time were like, I'll take a gin martini, vodka soda, that type of crowd, right?
15:24
SPEAKER_02: And I took I I said, Dad, let me take care of the cocktail liquor program, let me take care of the wine program, because he the problem is he didn't really understand was like back in the day when you price wine, it's like four times.
15:43
SPEAKER_02: It's like if a bottle costs you 20, you charge 80.
15:46
SPEAKER_02: Right.
15:46
SPEAKER_02: But you can't do that now because there's something called the internet on your phone.
15:51
SPEAKER_02: And you take a photo of a of a wine bottle and it's like, oh, well, if you pay tw if you pay 20 at the store, they're pay they're charging, I don't know, right 30 or 35.
16:01
SPEAKER_02: So why am I paying 80?
16:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so you know, it should be cost at 60 dollars, or you know, so right.
16:09
SPEAKER_02: Um, those are the things that we like butted heads with, but that year, actually he would tell customers, and like it took 15 years of me working with him the five, six days a week, yeah, for him to finally say, like, hey, I'm proud of my son Nick.
16:25
SPEAKER_02: Like, he's doing this, he's doing that.
16:27
SPEAKER_02: And it like every day I try to do something better.
16:30
SPEAKER_02: Good for you.
16:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's a great story.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we've had uh a few other restaurant owners who have taken the business uh over from their fathers.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: We had uh Frank Vento from Carmines Pizza Kitchen on.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: A very similar story of how, like, you know, his his dad started Carmines back in the day, and you know, it's it's evolved over time.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: But there was, you know, even a time where it's like, hey, dad, you know, the restaurant business is kind of changing, it's evolving.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it's hard for the you know the the dads to really you know stay current because what what has worked, what got him there, you know, got him there.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, um that the with with time, and especially in this day and age, things change so fast.
17:07
SPEAKER_02: Well, I'll give you a good example, please.
17:10
SPEAKER_02: One of our busiest nights of the week is Wednesday night because it's wine Wednesday, and we do 50% off wine under$100, and I do as much business as I would on a weekend, which is unheard of in in this industry.
17:27
SPEAKER_02: So last night I had 55 tables dine with us, right?
17:31
SPEAKER_02: 55 tickets.
17:32
SPEAKER_02: And out of those 55 tickets, we sold 62 bottles of wine.
17:36
SPEAKER_02: Oh shit.
17:36
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
17:37
SPEAKER_02: Now when I used to have arguments with my dad, I'm like, dad, you have this wine price too much.
17:43
SPEAKER_02: Oh, don't tell me what to do, this and that.
17:45
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, trust me, right?
17:47
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't do you any good if the bottles are collecting dust.
17:51
SPEAKER_02: And for me, like I had a customer come in and um very good customer, and they brought friends and they're part of this like fancy wine club.
18:01
SPEAKER_02: And the lady comes in and she looks over our um one of our walls, have wine racks, and she goes, Are all those bottles real?
18:08
SPEAKER_02: And I go, No one's ever asked me that question before.
18:11
SPEAKER_02: I go, Yeah, that she goes, Well, how how often do you sell wine?
18:16
SPEAKER_02: I go, that'll be empty at the end of the month.
18:18
SPEAKER_02: And she goes, Really?
18:19
SPEAKER_02: And I go, Yes.
18:20
SPEAKER_02: That's crazy.
18:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: Good for you.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: What a story.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: That I mean, the because you're right.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: I I worked in the restaurant business for a little bit too, and I remember we had a wall of wines, but ours were fake.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: Ours were, you know, filled with water or whatever, but you know, unsealed or sealed, of course.
18:35
SPEAKER_02: It's like the it's like those places that have um Louis XIII at like a bar in the casino that's like 20 foot high, and you're like looking for the ladder to see where like where they climb to get it.
18:48
SPEAKER_02: Like do they have like uh someone from Cirque du Soleil climbing it to get it?
18:51
SPEAKER_02: But it's filled with like iced tea or or like uh I don't know.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: Um it's like Wizard of Oz.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: Don't look behind the curtain.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: You don't even so is your dad still involved in the restaurant, or is it just unfortunately he passed away seven years ago.
19:05
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so what happened was uh six months after he passed, COVID happened.
19:10
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
19:10
SPEAKER_02: And there was this period where I was lost.
19:14
SPEAKER_02: And um long story short, during COVID, I worked seven months straight without a day off.
19:24
SPEAKER_02: Um finally I said to my mom, I go, listen, I go, you're you're 70 years old, almost.
19:32
SPEAKER_02: I'm fully committed to this.
19:33
SPEAKER_02: I want to buy the restaurant from you.
19:35
SPEAKER_02: And we made a deal on bought the restaurant.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: Here you are.
19:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: Do you feel I mean, what what was that feeling like when the the first day you walked in where you weren't just an employee anymore, you were an owner.
19:47
SPEAKER_02: Well, I felt I've always felt like an owner up until like even before being an owner, you felt like two years before, two, three years before I felt like I was an owner, but I I felt like it, but I didn't feel like it because I was I was still making money as a server, right?
20:10
SPEAKER_02: And the thing is, um, it wasn't officially mine.
20:13
SPEAKER_02: Like I I always felt embarrassed saying, like, my parents own this restaurant.
20:19
SPEAKER_02: I couldn't say like I own it because legally they owned it.
20:22
SPEAKER_02: It's some weird thing that I always had in the back of my head, like, because it's like if you go to a family restaurant and they're like, Yeah, I own the restaurant, like the kid legally they might not own it, but they're like, Yeah, we own the restaurant.
20:33
SPEAKER_02: But I always like my parents own it.
20:35
SPEAKER_02: It was some type of thing, like weird mental thing that I always had.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: I get that mindset, and I'm sure that you go you go into work with that mindset of, you know, I want things to be just as good as they are, even though I'm not the owner, but like I'm envisioning myself as the picking up trash on the or busting a table or touching table.
20:50
SPEAKER_02: I do all of that still.
20:51
SPEAKER_00: I know you do, I'm sure you do.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
20:53
SPEAKER_03: So I know you mentioned like your involvement with um the cocktails and the spirits, right?
20:59
SPEAKER_03: But I know from reading y'all's website and listening to other interviews that you do, you've maintained a lot of the originality and authenticity of what your dad Gaetano wanted to do, right?
21:10
SPEAKER_03: But you've elevated it to like this next level and your own vision as well.
21:15
SPEAKER_03: So, on top of the spirits and cocktails, what have you done to make Gaetanos feel like Nick Palmary's version?
21:23
SPEAKER_02: Right.
21:23
SPEAKER_02: So uh funny you say that.
21:24
SPEAKER_02: I was having dinner with my brother uh a few weeks ago at the restaurant, and he goes, Nick, dad made this place good, and you elevated to make it amazing.
21:35
SPEAKER_02: And the thing is, um, so during COVID, my wife was working for Cirque du Soleil.
21:40
SPEAKER_02: She worked for them for 22 years, and uh she was out of work for a year and a half.
21:44
SPEAKER_02: And I go, Sarah, you're good with maps, you're far smarter than me, you're good at taking tests, and you like wine, so get your wine certification.
21:53
SPEAKER_02: She's uh W S E T number three, and um she runs our wine program, so she helps.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: Us a lot with that.
22:01
SPEAKER_02: We just got like wine spectator um uh not like awarded three years in a row, and we were just mentioned in wine spectator as um one of the places that Federica Baffa, who's good friends of ours, she's um her family's five generation, four-generation winemakers.
22:22
SPEAKER_02: Um they make some of the best Barolo and Barbaresco in the world.
22:27
SPEAKER_02: Um, that our restaurant's one of her favorites to visit when she comes to the state.
22:31
SPEAKER_02: So that's crazy.
22:32
SPEAKER_02: Like um, but to finish what you were asking is how I elevated it.
22:38
SPEAKER_02: So back in 2018, I started going to trade shows.
22:42
SPEAKER_02: So I started going to uh Pizza Expo every year, and it's not all about pizza, they have other products.
22:48
SPEAKER_02: Right.
22:48
SPEAKER_02: Um, the fancy food show um used to be in Vegas during COVID for three years, um, and then they moved to San Diego, I believe.
22:59
SPEAKER_02: But this summer, my wife and I went to the one in New York, which is like massive.
23:04
SPEAKER_02: It's it's insane.
23:05
SPEAKER_02: And my philosophy of making Gaetanos better is making relationships with importers and producers.
23:17
SPEAKER_02: So, for example, um, you get a distributor, they distribute wine out of their warehouse here to your restaurant.
23:26
SPEAKER_02: Sure, right?
23:28
SPEAKER_02: It's okay to have relationships with them because they're the they're the middleman to bring the product.
23:33
SPEAKER_02: I want to know the people who make it, I want to know who the people who have the passion for it.
23:39
SPEAKER_02: Like when I go to Italy, I visit these places.
23:43
SPEAKER_02: Like in October next month, I'm actually going to Sicily for a week, not only to visit family, but to do olive oil harvest with my friends at Partana for uh three and a half days.
23:54
SPEAKER_02: And that's only a five to six week period of the year.
23:58
SPEAKER_02: Um, so things like that where you build relationships where you actually know the people whose hands are touching it, whose families have been making this stuff for three, four, five, six generations.
24:15
SPEAKER_02: Um, it's amazing.
24:16
SPEAKER_02: We went to a place in um Piemonte that produced our friends, the Bava family, they've been making wine since 1616.
24:25
SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
24:26
SPEAKER_02: And they make unbelievable wine, but they also make my favorite vermouth, Koki.
24:30
SPEAKER_02: You've probably seen Koki in in the supermarket or in a back um back bar at a restaurant.
24:37
SPEAKER_02: And they're these people wake up every single day and they're like, we just love what we do because people around the world can enjoy our product.
24:46
SPEAKER_02: And from those experiences, I'm very passionate about explaining those products and things like that to our customers.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: It's things like obviously staying up to date in terms of your design, having a you know a beautifully laid-out bar area.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: It's going to the source of where your ingredients are, it's building these relationships that you've been doing.
25:08
SPEAKER_00: It's the small details that you know are attributing to what Joe Rogan is saying, how it's his favorite restaurant, or how you guys are about to celebrate your 25-year anniversary at this location.
25:19
SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, you guys are doing such an amazing job, and people are having a great time in a time where restaurants aren't all having a great time.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: It's it's hard to own a restaurant right now.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure that you have some, you know, some nerves or some moments that you're like, I I hope this works out, but at the same time, you guys are doing such a phenomenal job.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: What's your secret?
25:41
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I guess that is kind of your secret, but what would you say?
25:44
SPEAKER_02: Is there anything the number one secret in the restaurant is yeah?
25:47
SPEAKER_02: My father always had a saying, and I heard no one else say it.
25:52
SPEAKER_02: If the food's always consistent, the most important thing is service because you can go to a place.
26:00
SPEAKER_02: I can I have dozens of examples of going to nice restaurants, and the service is so bad where you're like, I don't think I'm gonna come here for another year or two, you know.
26:15
SPEAKER_02: So the thing is I hire all all my servers are like ex-strip servers or ex-professionals.
26:24
SPEAKER_02: Um, I I have a mentorship program with um the secta, which is the uh technical school, uh high school, the culinary program, I hire a few kids every year teaching them different things.
26:38
SPEAKER_02: The most important thing is not only the food being consistent and service, but you have to be on top of your shit every single day.
26:48
SPEAKER_02: Like every single day.
26:50
SPEAKER_02: You know, if beef prices go up, you know, if beef prices go up one week, you're like you take it on the chin.
26:56
SPEAKER_02: But if it goes up, you know, six weeks straight and you're like, might have to adjust something, and then you go, you know what, let me just wait another six weeks.
27:04
SPEAKER_02: Because if you're very reactive, that's an issue with your customers because they're like, Well, I was paying$60 for this piece of steak, and now it's$65.
27:13
SPEAKER_02: And then, you know, it's like the eggs, right?
27:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
27:17
SPEAKER_02: That that that was a crazy and it was all insider.
27:22
SPEAKER_02: Is that what it was?
27:23
SPEAKER_02: Long story short, um, the egg debacle, it was they made$1.3 billion, and they only got fined$3.3 million.
27:34
SPEAKER_02: And they manufactured it.
27:36
SPEAKER_02: It's a study came out like two two months ago.
27:39
SPEAKER_02: Oh my god.
27:39
SPEAKER_02: But the thing is, you can't be reactive right away.
27:44
SPEAKER_02: You got to take it on the chin.
27:46
SPEAKER_02: I think the biggest thing for restaurant owners and people getting into the industry, the most important thing you have to do is make sure you have good credit.
28:01
SPEAKER_02: Don't buy stupid shit.
28:03
SPEAKER_02: Like try to find stuff secondhand or make sure you can use a piece of equipment that's versatile and um that you can use for a long time, good quality equipment, um, and and have a solid team.
28:18
SPEAKER_02: You know, of course, people want me to open up another Gaetano's in Summerlin in the Northwest.
28:26
SPEAKER_02: I live 10 minutes from the restaurant.
28:28
SPEAKER_02: I like that because I'm there six days a week.
28:32
SPEAKER_02: You know, um, I need to take more time off, but I'm there six days a week.
28:36
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
28:37
SPEAKER_02: But I I know the restaurant literally, if you blindfolded me, I would know exactly where to go in there without hitting anything.
28:45
SPEAKER_02: I've been there since 2002 almost every day.
28:48
SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
28:49
SPEAKER_00: You mentioned this uh before we started, but uh especially this day and age, value for families and when dining out is is so much more important as budgets decrease, value the importance of the value that they're getting back is is increasing.
29:04
SPEAKER_00: Right.
29:04
SPEAKER_00: Can you elaborate a little bit more on on that and how Gaetano's is really at the forefront of making sure that everybody has great experience there?
29:12
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
29:13
SPEAKER_02: So um I'll give you an example like for our pasta program and bright.
29:18
SPEAKER_02: So like I still do linens.
29:20
SPEAKER_02: People, when they go to a restaurant and see linen on a table, they're like, oh, this is nice.
29:24
SPEAKER_02: When you go to a a nice restaurant that doesn't have linens, you're like, yeah, they're probably saving, you know, they're there's I I go there and I'm like, they're smart, they're saving two to three thousand dollars a month on linens.
29:35
SPEAKER_02: That's how much I spend on linens every month is crazy.
29:38
SPEAKER_02: But the thing is, I'm always a firm believer if you go to an Italian restaurant, ideally, you should get a complimentary first basket of bread, which we do.
29:51
SPEAKER_02: And we make our focaccia in house, which is nice.
29:54
SPEAKER_02: And then another thing is you look at I look at my competitors, I always look at my competitors, what their reviews are and their menus, and I always look every few months to see if they change anything, right?
30:06
SPEAKER_02: And when people say they make their pastas fresh in-house, and I go on their Instagram or their Yelp, and I could tell it's box pasta, and they're charging six dollars less than what I charge for um, you know, really high quality Italian product, um, that's the value, you know.
30:29
SPEAKER_02: Um we like posting um on stuff on social media of how we make things, you know.
30:37
SPEAKER_02: Um, for example, our tomato sauce, I use the best tomatoes you can use for tomato sauce.
30:43
SPEAKER_02: And it takes us three and a half, four hours to make tomato sauce.
30:47
SPEAKER_02: People come in and they go, man, your your marsala sauce or your um your osubuco or your sauce on your steaks are really good.
30:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because I spend 36 hours cooking veal bones down to a demi glaze to make that, you know.
31:04
SPEAKER_02: So that behind the scenes stuff showing people the time it takes to cook, you know.
31:10
SPEAKER_02: People say, I hate cooking, right?
31:12
SPEAKER_02: People go, I go out to eat because I hate cooking.
31:17
SPEAKER_02: I love cooking.
31:18
SPEAKER_02: And the reason why I love cooking is because it sort of like takes you into like this fantasy land that you get everything off your mind, but not only that, but it takes time to cook good food.
31:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right?
31:35
SPEAKER_02: You can make eggs in under three minutes.
31:38
SPEAKER_02: Fine.
31:40
SPEAKER_02: But in order to make a good like I'm a pro now, I can make a good like to marinara sauce another another 35 minutes, but on a large scale you can't do that because you'll burn the bottom of the pot, right?
31:51
SPEAKER_02: But the thing is to make things valuable, you have to give people an experience and um special touches.
32:03
SPEAKER_02: And the thing is, like I get custom skewers for my cocktails.
32:08
SPEAKER_02: Um I when people sit down and have multiple courses, right, they're always getting fresh silverware.
32:17
SPEAKER_02: You go to places and it's like you're using the same knife and fork that you had for dessert and you're like WTF, right?
32:23
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
32:24
SPEAKER_02: So so the thing is um being on top of everything, the value.
32:29
SPEAKER_02: Like, for example, you have a coffee cup, a Starbucks cup right there, and it's a quarter full, right?
32:35
SPEAKER_02: If that was a water glass in my restaurant, I'd be like, why the hell does that person not have water?
32:40
SPEAKER_02: Yep, right?
32:41
SPEAKER_02: So always make sure the water glass is full.
32:43
SPEAKER_02: Always make sure that people, when they're tasting something, like I have customers that came back from Italy this summer and they go, Nick, your food is better than most of the places we ate in Italy.
32:55
SPEAKER_02: And I go, Well, that's your problem.
32:57
SPEAKER_03: And you picked the wrong place.
33:00
SPEAKER_02: I go, that's your problem.
33:01
SPEAKER_02: And they go, Why do you say that?
33:02
SPEAKER_02: I go, Well, if the server speaks better English than you, yeah, that's problem number one.
33:08
SPEAKER_02: And I go, the second problem is a lot of hotels that refer people to restaurants, they get paid off from them.
33:15
SPEAKER_02: And you can't you have to ask, like, a local that works in a pastry shop or things like that where they go.
33:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: Are you able to go out to a restaurant and just turn your brain off?
33:25
SPEAKER_00: Or are you always, even if it's not your restaurant, you're you're always looking, oh, that table needs to be pre-pre-bustered or oh, their drink is getting low.
33:31
SPEAKER_02: So my brain is shut off about 40% of the time.
33:36
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
33:37
SPEAKER_02: The reason why is because when I go out with my wife now, she makes sure that my back is facing service.
33:45
SPEAKER_02: She's a smart woman.
33:46
SPEAKER_02: So that you're not penalizing.
33:47
SPEAKER_02: Because no, because like she can't stand, like, pretend like this is her face, the microphone, and I'm like talking to her and I'm like looking around.
33:53
SPEAKER_02: Like, I don't even move my head, I'm like moving my eyes, and I count, you know, it's crazy because there's this like funny Instagram reel, somebody's like a restaurant owner.
34:01
SPEAKER_02: You go to a restaurant, you're like, you you flip over the the china to see where it's made, and then you're like counting how many tables they are.
34:09
SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah, like the crazy thing I do, it's it's it's wild.
34:12
SPEAKER_02: I count how many tables they have, then I count how many employees they have, and then I then I figure out that they have way too many employees for how many tables.
34:25
SPEAKER_02: Now, this is the crazy perfectionist I am because I could have your average person can only handle four tables.
34:39
SPEAKER_00: Is that is that what you give your staff four four out of time?
34:42
SPEAKER_02: No way, like, no way.
34:44
SPEAKER_02: So, like on an average, on an average night, I got 32 tables in the restaurant.
34:49
SPEAKER_02: Um, average weekday, a server has 10 tables.
34:53
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
34:54
SPEAKER_02: Eight to ten tables on a weekend, it's um seven to eight.
35:00
SPEAKER_02: At one point, when I was a server, this was like a shit hit the fan moment.
35:07
SPEAKER_02: We had a large group, but then we had a lot of walk-ins, like a ton of walk-ins.
35:13
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
35:13
SPEAKER_02: At one point, I had 15 tables by myself.
35:16
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
35:17
SPEAKER_02: And it just wouldn't end, and I was like having a mental breakdown at one point, but I was like, get it together, Nick, and and keep on trucking.
35:27
SPEAKER_02: But the thing is, um, when I go out to eat, it's very difficult.
35:30
SPEAKER_02: And I usually go to places where I'm comfortable.
35:33
SPEAKER_02: Um, I know the owners or I know the food quality is good.
35:37
SPEAKER_02: Um, but yeah, it's very, very difficult for me to go out.
35:40
SPEAKER_00: Uh you you mentioned your team, and I always like asking decision makers and business owners about their hiring process.
35:47
SPEAKER_00: When you're looking for somebody to join your team, which it sounds like you have a very close team, like they're very, you know, they buy into your vision, which you know is is fantastic.
35:58
SPEAKER_00: What do you look for when you're hiring uh somebody for the front of the house, back out of the house, regardless, it doesn't matter?
36:05
SPEAKER_02: Well, front of the house, I'm I'm more involved.
36:07
SPEAKER_02: The when it comes to back in the house, it's more uh my chef and I like but front of the house.
36:14
SPEAKER_02: Um so number one, we don't have a lot of turnover.
36:20
SPEAKER_02: It's great.
36:21
SPEAKER_02: Um, I had an employee that left us after 21 years.
36:25
SPEAKER_02: He was like uh he was a busser and then he was like the main food runner, unbelievable guy.
36:29
SPEAKER_02: And I said, please don't leave.
36:31
SPEAKER_02: And um he moved back uh to his home country to be closer to family.
36:36
SPEAKER_02: And um I said, please don't leave.
36:38
SPEAKER_02: It's gonna you're it's it's gonna take me six people to hire to fill you.
36:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I've already gone through eight.
36:45
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, it's very difficult.
36:47
SPEAKER_02: So um, but the thing is to get to your question, is when I hire someone, I look at longevity and experience versus like where they worked.
37:00
SPEAKER_02: Like I'll give you a really good example.
37:04
SPEAKER_02: I got a referral for someone to work as a as a as a food runner slash waiter, right?
37:10
SPEAKER_02: Because I had too many employees at that time.
37:13
SPEAKER_02: And he goes, Oh, I worked at Joe Robishon, this and that.
37:19
SPEAKER_02: So I'm like, well, how long?
37:20
SPEAKER_02: And he still had it, he was on Joe Robishon.
37:23
SPEAKER_02: Well, he was extra bored for Joel Robishon.
37:27
SPEAKER_02: Does that mean he's just like he's he's on call.
37:29
SPEAKER_02: He's on call, yeah.
37:31
SPEAKER_02: And anybody working at Joe Robishon, they'll they'll take off work once they get their like left arm cut off.
37:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
37:38
SPEAKER_02: So so you're not missing your so like after like a few weeks, I'm like, this guy's just not for us, right?
37:47
SPEAKER_02: But I hired someone recently that worked at a sort of fast-paced higher-end Italian restaurant for 10 years and he works on the strip.
37:58
SPEAKER_02: And you know, you talk to someone for 20 minutes and you can get them right away.
38:03
SPEAKER_02: But then there's people that you talk to and you ask them questions, and they don't even know because they're just like, I know everybody's got to get a start somewhere, but it's more like fast casual places and things like that.
38:17
SPEAKER_02: Because my menu has 42 items on my menu.
38:21
SPEAKER_02: I've got over a hundred wines on our wine list, I've got a full back bar.
38:26
SPEAKER_02: So if you don't know how to sell and and and knowledge about any of that stuff, then you're just not the right fit.
38:33
SPEAKER_00: This is the first time you and I met.
38:35
SPEAKER_00: We're about 50 minutes into our conversation.
38:37
SPEAKER_00: Would you hire me so far?
38:39
SPEAKER_00: Do I have the job yet or not yet?
38:40
SPEAKER_00: If you can hold a tray and uh Are you kidding me?
38:43
SPEAKER_00: I can hold trays like the best of them.
38:47
SPEAKER_00: Back in the day, I worked in the restaurant and uh it was some of the best times of my life.
38:52
SPEAKER_00: It was so stressful though.
38:53
SPEAKER_00: Like everybody that's in the hospitality business has that that that moment where like you talked about, you had 15 tables or so, and you know, people just kept coming in.
39:02
SPEAKER_00: As much as as much as they were stressful and the the money was great, I I I I do miss those those those times.
39:08
SPEAKER_00: And every now and then the hospitality business I do.
39:10
SPEAKER_02: The biggest thing for me is like, so we've been there almost 25 years.
39:15
SPEAKER_02: I've seen customers come in in their 50s and pass in their 70s and 80s, and I see them every week.
39:23
SPEAKER_02: I've seen kids literally in um baby carriages and now they're married or they're getting their master's degree or going off to college.
39:32
SPEAKER_02: I've seen three generations roll through there, which is which is wild, you know, because like one of my good customers, they're they're they started bringing their daughter there when she was like five years old, six years old.
39:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and now she has a kid, and it's like, geez, like I lost my hair.
39:48
SPEAKER_00: You have a kid, you know.
39:50
SPEAKER_00: Unintentionally, you're you you become a part of their lives.
39:52
SPEAKER_02: Yes, that's pretty awesome.
39:53
SPEAKER_02: Yes, and we're like, you know, and the and the nice thing is I truly feel passionate about having like the best fine dining independent restaurant in Henderson.
40:08
SPEAKER_02: And we're one of the very few.
40:10
SPEAKER_02: I love that.
40:11
SPEAKER_00: I'm Italian, so this may actually uh get you to decline me for my employment application that we're doing right now.
40:18
SPEAKER_00: When people hear bronze cut pasta, what does that mean?
40:22
SPEAKER_00: So are you offended that I don't know what that is?
40:25
SPEAKER_00: No, it's perfectly clear.
40:26
SPEAKER_00: Okay, good.
40:26
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
40:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so uh bronze cut pasta uh got started in uh the late 1800s in companion outside of Naples.
40:34
SPEAKER_02: So outside of Naples, they they originated the bronze cut.
40:37
SPEAKER_02: Um there's uh some villages um outside of Naples that make the best pasta in Italy, and then the second best place is outside of Mount Etna in Sicily.
40:49
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so uh the bronze dye is not Teflon.
40:55
SPEAKER_02: So Teflon um is what you you know, Barilla and all these other companies most of these other companies.
41:02
SPEAKER_02: Uh a Teflon dye is a white Teflon, so when it pushes through, it makes it go through faster, cleaner.
41:10
SPEAKER_02: A bronze dye, so what we do with our pasta with the extruder, um, I'm just gonna use example.
41:18
SPEAKER_02: So just say you put um a kilo of flour, semolina flour, high-grade semolina flour, which is double the price and half the size of American semolina flour, by the way.
41:33
SPEAKER_02: And you put 30% hydration, the water in there.
41:39
SPEAKER_02: And when you bronze dye it, and I have some videos on our older Instagram, but maybe I'll put some up once this launches so you can see, yeah, is there's little ridges inside the pasta, especially like spaghetti, uh the noodled pastas, yeah, and also like rigatoni.
41:59
SPEAKER_02: There's little ridges.
42:00
SPEAKER_02: So with that bronze dye, when you cook it, it expands, but when you saute it in the sauce, the sauce absorbs in those ridges.
42:10
SPEAKER_02: And it makes the pasta delicious.
42:13
SPEAKER_00: And that's that's what you incorporate with with your restaurant?
42:16
SPEAKER_02: Yes, we have about 14 different dyes um that we have.
42:22
SPEAKER_02: Currently, we do about seven or eight on the menu.
42:26
SPEAKER_02: That's great.
42:27
SPEAKER_03: What's your favorite?
42:30
SPEAKER_02: See, now this is a good question because people people ask me all the time, what's my favorite dish on the menu?
42:38
SPEAKER_02: And I say, it depends what mood I'm in.
42:40
SPEAKER_00: That's fair.
42:40
SPEAKER_02: You know, if I didn't eat all day, I'll eat a steak or ossobuco or two pasta dishes.
42:46
SPEAKER_02: But um, my all-time favorite pasta would have to be um one of our raviolis, which is our vial ravioli.
42:57
SPEAKER_02: It's the Ovan's favorite.
42:58
SPEAKER_02: It's um it's with it's my father's recipe.
43:01
SPEAKER_02: I've never had any ravioli in Italy that comes close to it.
43:04
SPEAKER_02: Really?
43:04
SPEAKER_02: So it's a it's a porcini mushroom, um, prosciutto cotto, peas, and cream sauce with the vial ravioli.
43:12
SPEAKER_02: But my favorite pasta cut would definitely have to be um a good spaghetti.
43:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
43:20
SPEAKER_03: I'm glad you said peas.
43:21
SPEAKER_03: I'm sorry.
43:22
SPEAKER_03: A lot of people think I'm crazy.
43:23
SPEAKER_03: I'm also Italian.
43:24
SPEAKER_03: It's a room full of Italians.
43:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
43:26
SPEAKER_03: And my favorite family recipe I have, because my family was very poor Sicilians, is pasta, peas, and eggs.
43:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
43:34
SPEAKER_03: And every time I say it to someone in my life, like, hey, this is what I'm making for dinner, they're like, oh, I'm gonna eat before I come over.
43:40
SPEAKER_03: Right.
43:40
SPEAKER_03: Because they can't conceptualize peas with a red sauce.
43:43
SPEAKER_03: Right.
43:43
SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, you're wrong.
43:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:45
SPEAKER_03: It's the best thing.
43:46
SPEAKER_00: You you you you now are justified for having your pool.
43:49
SPEAKER_03: Now I'm sure his red sauce is way better than mine, but mine also has history.
43:53
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
43:53
SPEAKER_00: We all got a story with our recipes.
43:55
SPEAKER_00: That's good.
43:56
SPEAKER_00: Uh Julie, go ahead.
43:57
SPEAKER_03: Oh, um, so another project.
44:00
SPEAKER_03: That you have is the Amaro Life.
44:02
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
44:02
SPEAKER_03: And I have had Amaro before, but for people that don't totally know what it is, because my understanding is it's a bitter of some sort.
44:12
SPEAKER_03: Can you can you elaborate on Amaro?
44:14
SPEAKER_02: So my Instagram, my personal Instagram handles the Amaro Life.
44:18
SPEAKER_02: Um it was a project that I started about eight years ago.
44:23
SPEAKER_02: If I had time during COVID and not worked every day, it would have blown up like crazy.
44:28
SPEAKER_02: But I was working 18 hours a day.
44:30
SPEAKER_02: But Amaro is a bittersweet liqueur from Italy.
44:35
SPEAKER_02: Majority of it is grain alcohol.
44:38
SPEAKER_02: And then it's very regional.
44:40
SPEAKER_02: So the average Amaro has anywhere from 20 to 35 herbs and botanicals.
44:49
SPEAKER_02: Um my favorite Amaro is Averna from Sicily.
44:53
SPEAKER_02: That's the one I started, my dad introduced me to when I was like eight years old.
44:57
SPEAKER_02: I actually went to the the um the distillery four years ago.
45:02
SPEAKER_02: And then there's a licorice uh bush that grows in my family's town um that they use that similar licorice for that um that Amaro.
45:14
SPEAKER_02: Um, but there's Amaro's, some of my favorites come from the Alps.
45:18
SPEAKER_02: Like I have one right now.
45:19
SPEAKER_02: We're actually uh creating a hot toddy with for our fall menu, but they take alpine meadow flowers and herbs, and they like it's sort of like a it's so weird.
45:33
SPEAKER_02: It's like it's wine, it's wine-based, so it's like a little bit um like sweet, but a little bit bitter.
45:39
SPEAKER_02: But there's stuff that's so bitter out there.
45:41
SPEAKER_02: Like I I remember one night my wife and I went to Italy and I go, Oh, I've never tried this Amaro before.
45:48
SPEAKER_02: You you want to get a shot?
45:49
SPEAKER_02: She goes, Yeah.
45:50
SPEAKER_02: And it ruined her night.
45:53
SPEAKER_02: And every time, and I just have it, I think I ran out, but I just have it at the bar just for a gag when people are like, give me a really strong Amaro.
46:00
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, oh, I got something for you.
46:03
SPEAKER_02: But each region of Italy, um, there are uh Amaros, uh, the categories become more popular.
46:10
SPEAKER_02: Um, a handful of our cocktails on our menu actually have Amaro in it.
46:15
SPEAKER_02: The reason why is because if you make a um whiskey sour, for example, right?
46:23
SPEAKER_02: A whiskey sour is lemon juice, simple syrup, and whiskey, of course.
46:29
SPEAKER_02: And whiskey has four, three or four ingredients in it, right?
46:33
SPEAKER_02: Um, but there's an Amaro whiskey sour that we used to have on our menu.
46:38
SPEAKER_02: Um, we're putting it back on in the fall, but it's made with cardamom amaro.
46:43
SPEAKER_02: So there's cardamom in the Amaro.
46:46
SPEAKER_02: But the Amaro has like 15-20 ingredients.
46:49
SPEAKER_02: So now it's like it's like a flavor bomb, yeah.
46:52
SPEAKER_02: You know, and and that's the cool thing about making cocktails with Amaro, like especially whiskey or um citrus-based cocktails, because um it dumbs down the bitterness a little bit, but it adds so much flavor.
47:08
SPEAKER_00: I do love how you're so passionate about the small details.
47:10
SPEAKER_00: Every everything that that that comes to you through your kitchen or through your bar has a story or has some sort of meaning to you, which you don't see too often.
47:19
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you do, and people just don't vocalize it as much.
47:21
SPEAKER_00: But I like the fact that you're so vocal about how something so you know, something like Amaro, where it uh would it was Averna?
47:30
SPEAKER_00: Is that what it's averna, yeah.
47:32
SPEAKER_00: It's from the province where your father was born, right?
47:34
SPEAKER_00: Like those types of details you you remember and you recognize and you put out there for others to enjoy.
47:39
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
47:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and and to add on to that, like one of my number one selling pastas right now is a pasta my father used to make me and my brothers at home as a kid.
47:49
SPEAKER_02: It's called Nick's Favorite Sauce or Nick's Favorite Pasta.
47:53
SPEAKER_02: And um, we use homemade bucottini, and we take um Italian chicken sausage, red bell peppers and onions, and marinara, and we cook it for like four and a half hours, slow and low.
48:04
SPEAKER_02: And that sauce is like, and people are like, What's this?
48:06
SPEAKER_02: I've never seen this on the menu.
48:08
SPEAKER_02: And like they try it and they're like, Holy shit, like, where's all this flavor coming from?
48:13
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, there's you just have to cook it like the right way.
48:19
SPEAKER_02: You can't be fast, you gotta be delicate.
48:20
SPEAKER_02: Patience with that.
48:21
SPEAKER_00: Do you still have small details uh from your father in the restaurant, like small things that you know are represent him?
48:30
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yes.
48:31
SPEAKER_02: So um when we did a refresh in the restaurant a few years ago, we have a photo of him.
48:36
SPEAKER_02: Um, it's actually in our cocktail book, too.
48:38
SPEAKER_02: It's a black and white photo that I colorized and did a little touch-up on.
48:42
SPEAKER_02: And it's him when he was 14 years old um working in that cafe in Sicily.
48:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and um, there's uh another photo of him with a bunch of friends and family, like during the celebration of black and white photo.
48:56
SPEAKER_02: And then there's uh some photos by the bar and articles, and then um there's some family photos and stuff like that that we have in the the restaurant.
49:05
SPEAKER_02: But um yeah, he was uh he was a larger-than-life person for sure.
49:10
SPEAKER_02: Um when he walked in a room, you know like who he was.
49:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um, but he was one of the the kindest, most um passionate person, I would say.
49:21
SPEAKER_00: You you did like a photo shoot or something where you wore his suit, right?
49:24
SPEAKER_02: Yes, yeah.
49:25
SPEAKER_02: Um believe it or not, some of his clothes still fit me.
49:30
SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, but uh you know, the funny, like the funny thing is he had a friend who was a tailor and owned a high-end Italian clothing store in Calabasas.
49:39
SPEAKER_02: And my dad would always like trade with him, like uh, you know, you can come to the restaurant and have dinner, and then if you buy this and whatnot.
49:47
SPEAKER_02: My dad loved my dad loved slacks, like he loved slacks, but unfortunately, um the 38-inch waist pleated slacks don't fit me in my 34-inch waist.
49:57
SPEAKER_02: So that's all right.
49:58
SPEAKER_03: You need his father's old tailor's number.
50:01
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly that's what I need.
50:02
SPEAKER_03: He has one.
50:03
SPEAKER_00: That's what I did.
50:04
SPEAKER_00: Um, well, listen, we we talked about your 25-year anniversary coming up.
50:07
SPEAKER_00: Are you guys doing anything special for that?
50:08
SPEAKER_00: Do you have any event coming up?
50:09
SPEAKER_02: Or are you just yeah?
50:10
SPEAKER_02: So we usually do a big wine dinner every um every anniversary.
50:16
SPEAKER_02: So that this year we're we're talking about doing a big event or a big tasting every week of the month of June.
50:26
SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, so um we're we're in the beginning stages of planning some stuff, and then maybe we do an event once a month.
50:37
SPEAKER_02: Like we usually do an like we just did a wine tasting.
50:39
SPEAKER_02: I do whiskey tastings probably once or twice a year.
50:42
SPEAKER_02: I'm doing a really cool anchovy tasting, a Sicilian anchovy tasting in two weeks from my friends from Sicily and the importer.
50:49
SPEAKER_02: Um, so we do a lot of little cool stuff like that.
50:52
SPEAKER_02: So um we're planning something big for sure.
50:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's it's it's a it's a it's a silver anniversary.
51:00
SPEAKER_00: So I love that.
51:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, congratulations, man.
51:02
SPEAKER_00: That's such a huge accomplishment.
51:03
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
51:03
SPEAKER_00: Especially this day and age.
51:04
SPEAKER_00: Um, so let's say for you know, you your 25-year anniversary is coming up in next year, right?
51:10
SPEAKER_00: In June, yeah.
51:11
SPEAKER_00: June next year.
51:13
SPEAKER_00: The next 25-year anniversary after that, or whatever anniversary.
51:16
SPEAKER_03: So the 50?
51:17
SPEAKER_00: 50 year anniversary.
51:18
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, math is hard when you're podcasting, really.
51:21
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but you know, for your 50-year anniversary, when Gaetanos is is still around, what's something what's something that's going to be important to you that people still talk about Gaetanos 25 years down the road from now?
51:35
SPEAKER_02: Well, I I think now and you can and you can put this back six, seven years ago.
51:44
SPEAKER_02: We're sort of an institution now, um, uh in in regards to restaurants.
51:49
SPEAKER_02: And um and we're not done.
51:52
SPEAKER_02: We're looking um potentially to expand in the future.
51:57
SPEAKER_02: Um but I think 50 years from now is to have the same uh quality, the same ethos, the same service um that we currently have.
52:10
SPEAKER_02: You know, um it's funny because there's a lot of videos I see of like, hey, get this new piece of equipment.
52:18
SPEAKER_02: It could braise this 10 times faster and this and that.
52:21
SPEAKER_02: But I go, yeah, but once the computer chip breaks, then what?
52:28
SPEAKER_02: You have to wait five days for someone to get it, you know.
52:30
SPEAKER_02: So like, you know, I my whole thing is like let's do things right every day, but also do them better than we did the day before.
52:40
SPEAKER_02: Right.
52:40
SPEAKER_02: Like I go into work every day knowing that I have to do better than what I did yesterday, and that's that was my father's philosophy.
52:49
SPEAKER_02: That's my philosophy.
52:50
SPEAKER_02: I try to do that with my servers and my service staff because once you trip, you can still run.
53:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but once you fall, it's harder to get up.
53:04
SPEAKER_00: Do you have a routine when you walk into the restaurant every day?
53:07
SPEAKER_00: Like, what time do you get in the restaurant?
53:08
SPEAKER_00: Is it is it super early or is it just midday or what?
53:11
SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's a good question.
53:13
SPEAKER_02: I used to have a really good routine.
53:14
SPEAKER_02: I used to post it on Instagram of taking a shot of espresso every morning.
53:20
SPEAKER_02: I'd go in, but I drink way too many espresso and I had heart palputations, and my doctor's like I would go five or six deep on espresso every day.
53:29
SPEAKER_02: Oh so they were like, they were like, yeah, you got to cut down on the espresso.
53:33
SPEAKER_02: So I don't do I don't do the rise and grind videos anymore.
53:36
SPEAKER_02: Um so um, but I'll give you an example of like my average Tuesday.
53:42
SPEAKER_02: I'm there, I'm there 6:45, 7 in the morning, receiving uh deliveries, checking on things.
53:51
SPEAKER_02: Um I don't get out of there till noon.
53:54
SPEAKER_02: I'm back at 3 and then I'm finished at 9.30 or 10.
53:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
54:00
SPEAKER_02: Average day where I need to go in the morning is eight o'clock.
54:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it just all depends, you know, the volume and how busy you are because if you if you sell a certain amount of produce or certain amount of something, you got to call your guys to deliver it the next day.
54:16
SPEAKER_02: And I'm not one to stand around um, you know, chodling my thumbs.
54:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I tell my drivers I'll be there at 8 a.m.
54:24
SPEAKER_02: in the morning, they'll be there at 8 a.m.
54:26
SPEAKER_02: sharp, get things in so I could start my day.
54:30
SPEAKER_00: Listen, the few people, myself included, but the very few people in Vegas that haven't had the exp hadn't had the opportunity and experience to go to Gaetanos, what's the best way to find you guys?
54:40
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm sure after w watching this episode or listening to this episode, everybody's gonna want to check out Gaetanos.
54:45
SPEAKER_00: What's the best way to find you guys?
54:46
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
54:46
SPEAKER_02: So our website, I know we're in Henderson, but it's GaetanoslasVegas.com.
54:51
SPEAKER_02: And then also um our Instagram, uh Gaetanos Ristorante.
54:57
SPEAKER_02: And then um, yeah, and then Google search Gaetanos Henderson.
55:03
SPEAKER_00: Actually, I have one more random question before.
55:05
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
55:06
SPEAKER_00: Uh I always like asking these random one-off questions, but let's just say I'm starting to see this new girl, and she's coming over to my house for the first time, and I'm I'm gonna cook for her.
55:16
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna cook her something Italian.
55:18
SPEAKER_00: What am I cooking her?
55:19
SPEAKER_00: And I have a medium level of expertise of cooking.
55:22
SPEAKER_00: I can I can make a good spaghetti, I can make a good pasta.
55:25
SPEAKER_02: You gotta make sure she likes garlic.
55:26
SPEAKER_02: That's the first thing.
55:27
SPEAKER_02: Garlic's big, garlic's a big thing, of course.
55:30
SPEAKER_02: Um see, when I I impressed my wife when I showed her how to cook risotto the right way.
55:44
SPEAKER_02: What's the right way?
55:48
SPEAKER_02: Well, I got a technique to cook risotto in a in a in a way where you don't need to stand around and stir it for 40 minutes.
55:56
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
55:56
SPEAKER_02: So um you gotta start your base with shallots and butter, right?
56:02
SPEAKER_02: And then you gotta use um good qu you can get risotto anywhere, but I like like good quality risotto.
56:09
SPEAKER_02: I use, you know, if I to go somewhere, I would go to a cured and wade um uh on post and valley view and get some good risotto.
56:17
SPEAKER_02: Um and then um you gotta add white wine before you add the chicken stock.
56:23
SPEAKER_02: And then the technique is just say you cook half a pound of risotto, or just say a pound of risotto, right?
56:31
SPEAKER_02: Um and they say, Oh, you gotta put four tablespoons for each pound.
56:39
unknown: Okay.
56:40
SPEAKER_02: No, you put six tablespoons, right?
56:43
SPEAKER_02: But then you the problem is when people are cooking risotto, they're like, oh, I gotta add the chick, you put you you warm the chicken stock up in a pot next to the risotto, right?
56:52
SPEAKER_02: And then you add the chicken stock and you stir, and then you reduce it, and then you add it again.
56:59
SPEAKER_02: That's like too much time, okay, right?
57:05
SPEAKER_02: So just say, I'm gonna use these fingers, right?
57:08
SPEAKER_02: So just say uh this is the risotto, and then this is the chicken stock, and your pans up to here, yeah, double the chicken stock.
57:18
SPEAKER_02: Okay, because then you can simmer it without stirring it so much.
57:21
SPEAKER_02: So instead of stirring it like Zabayon, you're like there's stirring and stirring it, you stir it half the time.
57:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
57:29
SPEAKER_02: And then once it's like final reduction, then you stand over there and start stirring it and increase the flame.
57:36
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I'm gonna do.
57:36
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna have this overlaid on a video of me making this, and we'll see how it goes.
57:41
SPEAKER_00: We'll see if she's if she stays with me or not afterwards.
57:43
SPEAKER_02: I could do a time-lapse video if you want to.
57:46
SPEAKER_01: Well, he might need it.
57:47
SPEAKER_00: He might need it.
57:48
SPEAKER_00: I might do that.
57:48
SPEAKER_00: Well, Nick, this was awesome, man.
57:49
SPEAKER_00: I really do appreciate you coming on, taking the time to talk about Gaetanos and your your history and your family and everything that you guys are doing.
57:56
SPEAKER_00: I'm so excited for you guys to continue to thrive and um really, really stoked to finally come check out your restaurant.
58:01
SPEAKER_00: We were looking at the menu yesterday.
58:03
SPEAKER_03: My stomach's been growling.
58:05
SPEAKER_03: I if you noticed I got quieter, yeah.
58:07
SPEAKER_03: My stomach's just growling.
58:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but this was so much fun.
58:10
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
58:11
SPEAKER_02: I appreciate you guys having me.
58:12
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
58:13
SPEAKER_00: And thank you to Eric and Feast of Friends for setting this up, man.
58:16
SPEAKER_00: You guys are rock stars.
58:17
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but that's it.
58:18
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm starving.
58:20
SPEAKER_00: I am freaking hungry.
58:21
SPEAKER_00: Do you have any last questions before we get out of here?
58:23
SPEAKER_03: No, I just need to make a reservation.
58:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, in fact, make a reservation as we're talking right now.
58:26
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna do a table of five.
58:28
SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
58:29
SPEAKER_00: We'll catch new episodes each week on heybighead.com.
58:32
SPEAKER_00: I'm starving, so I'm gonna go eat some food.
58:34
SPEAKER_00: Let's do it.