Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Building Family Culture Through Authentic Leadership: Danilo Di Nardo's Story

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Building Family Culture Through Authentic Leadership: Danilo Di Nardo's Story · The Inspired Stories Podcast

• 0:04
  Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
• 0:08
  where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
• 0:11
  their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
• 0:14
  adversity. My name is Anthony Codaspodi,
• 0:17
  and today's guest is Danilo Dinardo.
• 0:19
  He is the vice president of operations at Lombardi Family
• 0:23
  Concepts. They are a 49 year old family
• 0:28
  owned restaurant group known for award-winning cuisine and a
• 0:32
  family oriented atmosphere. Their mission is to create warm,
• 0:36
  welcoming dining experiences that make every guest feel like
• 0:40
  part of the Lombardi family. They have been recognized by
• 0:43
  Wine Spectator for six years, showcasing an exceptional global
• 0:48
  wine program. Danilo joined Lombardi Family
• 0:51
  Concepts in December of 2019, bringing diverse experience in
• 0:56
  restaurant and hospitality management.
• 0:59
  He previously served as Director of Operations and regional
• 1:02
  Director of Hospitality at Sommelier at Harwood
• 1:06
  International. His leadership has helped shape
• 1:08
  new initiatives and Dr. operational excellence across
• 1:12
  the company's multiple locations.
• 1:14
  Under his guidance, the team continues to refine menus,
• 1:18
  enhance service and maintain a family oriented atmosphere
• 1:22
  across all venues. Now before we get into all that
• 1:25
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  To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at
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  AD back benefits.com. All right, back to our guest
• 2:06
  today, VP of OPS at Lombardi Family Concepts, Danilo Dinardo.
• 2:11
  I appreciate you making the time to Share your story today.
• 2:13
  Pleasure to be here, Anthony. How are you?
• 2:15
  I'm. Doing great so let's get into it
• 2:18
  you started working in the restaurant industry at 13 as I.
• 2:23
  Understand it to buy. An expensive pair of jeans after
• 2:27
  your dad challenged you. Can you tell me more about that?
• 2:31
  That is absolutely correct, yes. Well, I'm born and raised in
• 2:36
  Italy and obviously lived with mom and dad, as it should be
• 2:41
  when I was 13. And there was a specific brand
• 2:45
  of jeans and fashion at the time that was becoming very popular.
• 2:50
  And I wanted that pair of jeans for Christmas.
• 2:54
  And so, you know, I had mentioned it to my parents and
• 2:58
  obviously Christmas came around then the pair of jeans did not
• 3:01
  show up. And I guess I was a little bit
• 3:05
  upset about it. And my dad set me down and, you
• 3:08
  know, told me, son, until you leave under this roof, we are
• 3:12
  going to provide the best that we can for you and we're going
• 3:16
  to get you close that we think are appropriate for your age and
• 3:20
  yadda, yadda, yadda. All right, So I listened to it,
• 3:23
  but the pair of jeans did not, did not go anywhere.
• 3:27
  I still had it in my mind. So at that point, summer
• 3:31
  approached and I was looking to get a job.
• 3:35
  I was looking to make some money so I could earn my pair of jeans
• 3:39
  and my dad told me when you enter the workforce you're going
• 3:43
  to be able to earn for yourself. You can afford everything you
• 3:45
  want, but until then you leave out there by roof.
• 3:48
  Those are the rules. So I did found a job at.
• 3:53
  The age of 13 was that. Unusual 13.
• 3:55
  You know, I, I think back in the days, probably one or two
• 4:00
  generations before mine, I think it was actually very common.
• 4:04
  But, you know, I was born in 1983 and my age was not that
• 4:08
  common. But my parents had this
• 4:11
  membership at this beach club on the coast of southern Italy in
• 4:16
  Puglia, where I'm from. So I started making phone calls
• 4:19
  here and there. And the owner of the club said,
• 4:22
  yes, I have a spot for you. I need somebody that makes
• 4:26
  coffee. The job is called Barista, you
• 4:29
  know, And I said, yeah, of course I'll be there when we
• 4:32
  start. So then I went back to my dad
• 4:35
  and I said, hey, I, I think I found a job, but I think I found
• 4:38
  a summer job. I want to start working.
• 4:41
  My dad went furious. He's like, that is no way you're
• 4:45
  13 years old, there is no chance you're going to start working.
• 4:50
  I said OK, well at that point Anthony, the middle of the night
• 4:55
  one night I took €100 out of his wallet and I left home in the
• 5:03
  middle of the night, slept on top of my roof building that
• 5:08
  night, got 2 buses and a train, did not eat for probably good 48
• 5:16
  hours and I made it to point of destination and I got to the
• 5:22
  job. I presented myself.
• 5:23
  They told me what I was going to do with this and that and as I
• 5:27
  said, my parents were member at this club.
• 5:30
  We had a beach house there and so in my head I'm like, hey, I'm
• 5:35
  going to have no problem when I work there, I'm going to go
• 5:37
  sleep in my own home. Time to find out.
• 5:41
  I arrived to my house, everything is locked.
• 5:43
  I obviously don't have keys. I was hoping to find a window
• 5:47
  that I could crack to get in and sleep.
• 5:50
  Instead I couldn't and I slept on the terrace.
• 5:55
  By day 2, my parents obviously were going crazy looking for me.
• 6:00
  The lady that owned the club figured it out that something
• 6:04
  was wrong by me probably wearing the same set of clothes today in
• 6:08
  the row. And she made a call to my
• 6:11
  parents and my parents came over and you know, figured it out
• 6:17
  what was in my head and what I was doing.
• 6:19
  However, I did kept that job. I worked the entire summer
• 6:24
  making coffee and I eventually went back for the second season,
• 6:29
  F-14. And I did, you know, other
• 6:33
  different style with the same club as far as animation and get
• 6:38
  people involved to do dances and group activities and stuff like
• 6:42
  that. So that was my first job.
• 6:44
  I never stopped working after that.
• 6:46
  So your plan was I'm going to sneak out of the house early
• 6:50
  every morning to get to this job and then sneak back into the
• 6:54
  house at the end of the day? My.
• 6:56
  Parents will just. Think I'm off goofing around
• 6:59
  with my friends? They won't miss me.
• 7:01
  They won't know anything's up, That this was sort of the plan.
• 7:04
  Right. No, no.
• 7:05
  But I was in a totally different city, so my hometown is about 30
• 7:11
  minutes away from the beach, so. You weren't going to be coming
• 7:14
  back and forth every. Night.
• 7:15
  No, no, I was set. So this is what I'm doing.
• 7:18
  Where? Were you sleeping at when you
• 7:19
  were working at the beach club? At the beach house.
• 7:23
  OK. Oh, your family's beach house
• 7:25
  there? Right, right, right.
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  OK. Now I'm, I don't know, up to
• 7:29
  speed. I missed that part.
• 7:30
  OK, So you were sleeping on the terrace at the beach house where
• 7:34
  you thought you could find a way in?
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  You could. OK.
• 7:37
  Exactly. Exactly.
• 7:38
  How long before you actually got the jeans then?
• 7:42
  I did end up buying the gym that summer and I still have them.
• 7:48
  And you still have them. I still haven't very much.
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  Don't check a banner. OK, Yeah.
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  I still have it in my closet. They are dark grey and my wife
• 7:58
  today asked me can we throw these things away?
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  I'm like, no, it, it is a symbol of something.
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  It means something. Like for a lot of business
• 8:07
  owners, they'll frame like the first dollar that they made.
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  I feel like for you, like you, this is kind of, you know, this
• 8:12
  is like your starting point, right?
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  Like it's. It was your somewhere.
• 8:17
  Yeah, that was the original push.
• 8:20
  It was the motivation, so. How did your dad get on board
• 8:23
  with this then? Well, at that point I just took
• 8:25
  control myself. I said this is what I'm doing
• 8:28
  and I'm going to do it. And he had to put up with it.
• 8:31
  And I, you know, I always loved working, I loved the
• 8:34
  environment, I always loved S&B. As you understand, I've been
• 8:37
  doing that since I was 13. I'm 41 years old now.
• 8:41
  I went back to that club, 2 summer jobs, 2 summers.
• 8:45
  And then after that I went back to my hometown after the second
• 8:48
  season and I started working fully in kitchens in a pizzeria
• 8:54
  that was right by my house. And I was going to school in the
• 8:57
  morning and working at night. And you know, to be honest with
• 9:01
  you, I come from, you know, a good family that provided very
• 9:05
  well, but I just had the need for more I guess.
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  And, you know, I was going with my bicycle after school every
• 9:13
  day. My first job in the in this
• 9:16
  pizzeria, I was assistant pizza maker.
• 9:21
  Assistant. Yeah.
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  I was basically cutting the vegetables and getting
• 9:26
  everything done for the prep for the pizza lady.
• 9:30
  At the time, I wasn't allowed to stretch the dough.
• 9:33
  I wasn't allowed to put the sauce.
• 9:35
  I wasn't allowed to do anything, just prep work.
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  You had to pay your dues, you know, to work your way.
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  Out 100 percent, 100%. So you can send you continue to
• 9:44
  work in food and beverage while you're in Italy, right?
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  And then in 2003, you had an opportunity to come to the
• 9:50
  States. Correct.
• 9:54
  Well, that actually has a little bit of a longer story.
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  So my parents have lived in the United States 70s and 80s.
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  The reason how we got there is because during World War 11 of
• 10:13
  my aunt got married with AUS citizen that was a national army
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  based in Italy. The the my aunt was the first
• 10:26
  out of seven and my father is the last of them.
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  So she moved to United States, I believe was 1945 or 1946 and
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  then little by little she started recalling all brothers
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  and sister to come and join her in Los Angeles.
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  Eventually my dad in 1976 came to United States, went to UCLA
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  and started having a life in California, went back home for
• 11:02
  vacation a couple years later and married my mother and took
• 11:07
  my mother with him back to California.
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  In 1982, because of some family issue, my grandpa passed away
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  and so on, my dad decided to move back with my mother and I
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  was born in 1983. So, you know, if you ask my
• 11:26
  mother, my dad, they they'll tell you that the idea of having
• 11:30
  me was actually in the States, but I was born in Italy.
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  And then they stayed there until, you know, I think my dad
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  came back to the States in the year 2000.
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  And then I finished school and I came here in 2003 for a vacation
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  because my dad really wanted me to see United States and
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  California. At the time.
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  No, no. He came back in 2000 just for a
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  visit. And then you went back, you
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  know, to Italy. Life was normal.
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  And then 2003, as I said, you know, vacation with my dad to
• 12:07
  United States. He wanted to show me US and
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  where the family did this and did that and yada, yada, yada.
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  And I arrived in Miami in 2003 legally, likely because my
• 12:19
  parents were able to obtain citizenship while they were here
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  in the 70s and 80s. And I had an open ticket for
• 12:27
  about 3 months to then come back to Italy.
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  And about 30 days later, I said to my dad, I said, I'm not going
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  back. This is beautiful.
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  And we landed in Miami. So you can only imagine, I'm at
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  this time, I'm like 20 1/2, almost 21.
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  I land in Miami, the beach, the people, the colors, totally
• 12:49
  different than southern Italy. So fascinating.
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  And that's it. I decided to stay.
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  I think my mother cried for like a month and a half straight
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  thought she's she was going to lose a son.
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  But yeah, here we are today. You know what?
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  21 years later, 22 almost here I am so.
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  You came in 2003. How was your English at that
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  point? Terrible.
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  Terrible did. You make a way for yourself.
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  You know, I actually, I got to be honest with you, the first
• 13:20
  three months were rough. Yeah, and I'm saying rough to
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  the level that, you know, you're crying yourself at night asleep
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  because, you know, I know. Hi.
• 13:30
  I know. Bye.
• 13:31
  I know. Thank you.
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  A little bit of that, you know, English that you study in
• 13:36
  school. But there was nothing
• 13:38
  conversational. I couldn't understand anybody.
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  I was watching ATV that I didn't understand.
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  I was listening to music that I didn't understand.
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  I couldn't really communicate with anybody.
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  So it was really, really hard. Luckily my dad had some
• 13:52
  connection and there was a friend of the family that owned
• 13:55
  a restaurant in Boca Raton, FL. That was the name of the
• 14:00
  restaurant. No, the name of the restaurant
• 14:02
  was Arturo's Restaurant in Boca Raton, FL.
• 14:06
  Yeah, yeah. And so my dad went and talked to
• 14:09
  his friend and they hired me as a help, whatever I could do, bus
• 14:15
  table, help out with, you know, the kitchen a little bit, wash
• 14:18
  dishes, what whatever was whatever was doable.
• 14:22
  And they were very, very kind. Arturo and Rosaria Gismondi,
• 14:28
  which actually had a restaurant in New York as well in the early
• 14:31
  80s, they took me in and they, they showed me a little bit the
• 14:35
  ropes on how to make the hospitality work in United
• 14:38
  States because for me it was completely different.
• 14:41
  Even though I'd worked at this point in Italy.
• 14:43
  I've done pizza guy, salad guy, I've done deliveries, I've been
• 14:48
  a server. But you know, you come to United
• 14:51
  States, obviously not having the language, it's very challenging
• 14:54
  to do that. So you have to start from the
• 14:56
  bottom, which I did. I enjoyed it.
• 14:58
  Very beautiful group of people. I paid my dues there too, and I
• 15:03
  kept going. And you said that you found
• 15:06
  hospitality in the States was totally different from Italy.
• 15:09
  How so? Well, you know, the places that
• 15:12
  I worked in Italy were very different.
• 15:15
  You know, I worked at the same pizzeria that I was telling you
• 15:18
  about for, I don't know, maybe a couple of years, actually a
• 15:22
  little bit more. But, you know, I wasn't local
• 15:25
  pizzeria in a neighborhood. There wasn't really a level of
• 15:30
  service or standards. There was more.
• 15:33
  You come in, you order your food, somebody's bringing it to
• 15:36
  you, you eating it, and that's it.
• 15:39
  When I moved to A to the States, especially the caliber of
• 15:42
  restaurant that hired me Arturos.
• 15:45
  We're talking about old school tuxedo table service with
• 15:51
  capitan back waiters, expensive wine list, dessert cart being
• 15:57
  rolled around the room to cut fresh slices for people.
• 16:01
  Smoked salmon cut at the table service was incredibly different
• 16:07
  for me. I've never served the table in.
• 16:09
  Presentation. More of a show.
• 16:11
  Oh yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And and you know, the way people
• 16:16
  spoke about wine and food, the description and everything that
• 16:18
  was made happen, the style of service too, from you know, how
• 16:22
  to open a bottle of table, how to crumb a table, how to carry 6
• 16:27
  to 8 dishes on a tray with a clash.
• 16:30
  I mean, all those things, I wasn't really exposed that, so I
• 16:33
  had to learn everything from scratch.
• 16:36
  And how were you advancing your English skills during this time?
• 16:40
  You know, communication with people, talking to people,
• 16:45
  constantly making mistakes and not of being afraid of making
• 16:48
  mistakes and, and you know, some people tell you, hey, this is
• 16:52
  wrong. The way you say it, you should
• 16:54
  say it this way one time, 2 * 3 times.
• 16:56
  Eventually you hear, you keep hearing it, you adjust yourself
• 17:01
  and you know, it takes time. It took it took time, but and.
• 17:06
  And I want to pause for a moment and kind of draw a spotlight to,
• 17:09
  you know, how challenging this had to have been, right?
• 17:12
  You're, you're a young kid, I mean, 2021, you know, your early
• 17:15
  20s and you're in a new place that you're excited about,
• 17:20
  right? Lots of good looking people,
• 17:21
  lots of energy, you know, the music, the color, it's fun.
• 17:25
  But you don't know anybody and you don't know the language.
• 17:28
  And that's scary. Like not being able to interact
• 17:32
  with people and have conversations like you feel you
• 17:35
  had to have felt really isolated.
• 17:37
  Yeah. Well, you know, truth to be
• 17:39
  told, I had a sister of my father, lived in Boca Raton, so
• 17:47
  I was close to her and she was, you know, a little bit of a
• 17:50
  support system at the beginning. So at least I could go home to
• 17:54
  somebody that I knew, right. And that that was good.
• 17:58
  But still, as I said, the first three months extremely rough,
• 18:03
  even by knowing and having an aunt, which by the way was the
• 18:07
  first time I ever met her at that point, even by having a
• 18:11
  hand was challenging. I mean, she had her own life and
• 18:14
  you know, her own job and, you know, but at least was somebody
• 18:18
  that I could go home and and I had like that comfort zone,
• 18:21
  right? But outside, outside of that was
• 18:25
  incredibly hard. How?
• 18:27
  Long before you felt like you were kind of standing on your
• 18:29
  own 2 feet and you're like, OK, I got this now.
• 18:33
  Well, you know, I'm I'm a little bit how that'll be crazy I'm.
• 18:38
  Getting that, I mean you. Hopped on.
• 18:40
  A bus for 48 hours to run away from home so you could go work
• 18:43
  at a, at a, you know, as a barista.
• 18:45
  Yeah, I'm picking up on it, you know.
• 18:47
  So I arrived in the States in March.
• 18:53
  In August, I'm walking down the street in my aunt's neighborhood
• 18:59
  and I saw a sign house for sale. I have no money, Anthony.
• 19:05
  I have no money. I came in this country.
• 19:08
  I had €300 in my pocket, right? So I called my father.
• 19:13
  I said, dad, I didn't want to stay here.
• 19:16
  I found a house for sale. What do you think?
• 19:18
  You lend me some money to buy a house?
• 19:21
  So my dad thought about it a little bit, and maybe 2 weeks
• 19:25
  later, he hopped on a plane, came over here, We went to take
• 19:29
  a look at the house. He put the down payment on the
• 19:32
  House and he told me, but you're paying for the mortgage.
• 19:37
  I said no problem, I figured it out.
• 19:40
  So we spent a couple of weeks remodeling the house, painting,
• 19:44
  buying furniture and everything else and he got me all squared
• 19:47
  away and off he went back to Italy.
• 19:51
  Man, that's the beauty of family, huh?
• 19:52
  You've got hundreds of support to help you get started.
• 19:55
  But you know, that was, that was a hand up, not a hand out.
• 19:59
  You know he got you started and he's like and then the mortgage
• 20:02
  is on you. Yeah.
• 20:04
  And so, OK, so you, I mean, you had a rough first few months,
• 20:08
  but you know, you were you were in it, you bought a house and
• 20:13
  then opportunities kind of opened up for you down the road
• 20:16
  where you were able to study wine and work in some locations,
• 20:20
  you know, including Miami, then New York, Dallas.
• 20:24
  You know what, What were some key lessons that you learned
• 20:27
  along the way that now, as you look back, kind of prepared you
• 20:31
  for your role at Lombardi? Well, I found a lot of good
• 20:38
  people on my way, a lot of people that took me under their
• 20:43
  wing. It really taught me a lot.
• 20:45
  A lot of mentors that really spend the time to try to make me
• 20:50
  understand what was the right way of learning this business or
• 20:54
  were the right moves. And.
• 20:57
  And the love for wine came from the experience that I had at
• 21:01
  Arturos in Boca Raton, simply because the owner, Vincenzo, was
• 21:07
  in love with wine. It also was a summer.
• 21:10
  Yeah. He had a tremendous passion.
• 21:12
  And he kept like, giving me books about wine or, you know, I
• 21:16
  will go early to work in the afternoon and he will dare and
• 21:22
  he will be having meetings with wine wraps.
• 21:25
  And that was always fascinating to the point that he came up to
• 21:28
  me one day. It's like, hey, would you like
• 21:30
  to learn how to bartend or do anything like that?
• 21:33
  And I said, yeah, absolutely. So he actually paid for my
• 21:37
  bartending school, and I went there.
• 21:42
  I think the course was like a month.
• 21:45
  I did that. I came back and then he put me
• 21:47
  to work behind the bar. So I had started these
• 21:51
  opportunity of seeing all the aspect of the business worked in
• 21:55
  the kitchen, cleaning dishes, washing vegetables, busing
• 22:01
  tables. Now I have an experience at the
• 22:03
  bar and that little by little, I mean I was, I was in that venue
• 22:08
  for a couple of years, eventually transitioned with a
• 22:11
  larger group, which was the Cass and Angelo Group from Angela
• 22:15
  Leah in South Florida. I learned a ton from him,
• 22:18
  learned a ton from the team. They're opening restaurant,
• 22:21
  managing restaurant, the front of the house at a different
• 22:23
  level. I got my first look into
• 22:26
  financials of the restaurant operation in general and then in
• 22:32
  New York was really what made my bones.
• 22:37
  I am, well, I'm 24. I had an experience which we'll
• 22:46
  probably touch a little bit later if I have the opportunity
• 22:49
  at 24. I got higher in Miami as a
• 22:52
  general manager. I guess my personality was what
• 22:57
  they liked the best, but as far as knowing the business, I had
• 23:01
  absolutely no idea what I was doing. 0 But as you come to
• 23:06
  understand the way I am, I'm like, I'm going to do it, no
• 23:10
  worries. I'm going to take this challenge
• 23:12
  on and see what's going on. And so I worked as general
• 23:15
  manager in Miami for a couple of years and days was 26, seven,
• 23:22
  almost going into 2008. I don't know if you remember,
• 23:27
  but 2007 and 8, Miami was tragic when it comes down the
• 23:30
  economical crush, the real estate market was terrible and
• 23:35
  we ended up, you know, losing the restaurant.
• 23:39
  So that sent me back and because of a series of other things, I
• 23:46
  received a call from this guy from New York.
• 23:49
  His name is Louis Lanzinaro and I had a great mentor of mine.
• 23:53
  Louis owned a couple of restaurants and he had his
• 23:56
  restaurant in Saratoga Springs and he said to me, would you
• 24:01
  like to come and manage one of my places up here upstate?
• 24:05
  I said, why not? So pack the car up.
• 24:10
  I told my parents I was going there for the summer and I went
• 24:15
  to New York first time 2009. I did a season for them, for
• 24:20
  Louis at the restaurant called Nova in Saratoga Springs.
• 24:25
  And then I came back down to Florida and I did the winter
• 24:29
  season in Florida. And then Louis called me back
• 24:33
  again and he said, hey, would you like to come and be full
• 24:37
  time here and become the general manager?
• 24:39
  I said, absolutely backed up everything, moved to New York.
• 24:43
  OK. Now how did the opportunity at
• 24:46
  Lombardi come about? The opportunity at Lombardi,
• 24:50
  we're skipping, we're skipping few years ahead.
• 24:53
  We're talking. My first experience in New York
• 24:56
  is 2009. I arrived in Texas in 2060.
• 25:02
  I got to Texas tour towards the beginning of 2016.
• 25:06
  I was hired by Gabrielle Barbier Mueller, which was is the owner
• 25:12
  of Harwood International, which is a real estate company that
• 25:16
  was developing A hospitality branch.
• 25:19
  And so they called me and they wanted me to be here part of
• 25:23
  their opening and open one of their concept, which was Dolce
• 25:26
  Riviera. I worked with them four years or
• 25:30
  so. And then one day we'll never
• 25:33
  forget this one Monday, I'm in the kitchen in my house, just
• 25:38
  chilling. It's my day off.
• 25:40
  My phone rings. I pick up the phone.
• 25:43
  Alberto Lombardi, it's OK, answered the phone call.
• 25:49
  I said charm. He said, Alberto, how are you?
• 25:51
  And I have met Alberto one time at this point, and he says, what
• 25:55
  are you doing? I said, I don't know, I'm home,
• 25:58
  I'm just chilling, what are you doing?
• 25:59
  He said nothing. I'm running around the
• 26:01
  restaurant. What are you doing?
• 26:02
  Tomorrow you want to do lunch? I said sure.
• 26:06
  So I met him the following day for lunch and he told me what he
• 26:12
  wanted and he was looking for somebody to join him and help
• 26:16
  him with some of the operation, some of the leadership.
• 26:20
  And I liked him. I liked the ideas, I liked the
• 26:24
  opportunity to put an imprint on what he was doing.
• 26:30
  And again, Lombardi family concept this year is 49 years,
• 26:33
  right? So joining an iconic restorator
• 26:37
  that has such a great history that will allowed you to put
• 26:40
  some of your own credo within your organization was incredibly
• 26:45
  attractive to me. And you know, I had an
• 26:47
  incredible feeling without battle from the beginning.
• 26:50
  I felt much more of a father and son type of relationship than
• 26:55
  anything else. And I decided to join.
• 26:58
  And that was November 19. And that's it, here I am.
• 27:06
  So I'm looking at your website, lombardifamilyconcepts.com, and
• 27:10
  I'm looking at the collection of brands and they're all the, the
• 27:15
  interiors here. They're all beautiful.
• 27:16
  They're, I mean, they're amazing.
• 27:17
  Thank you. They're all different from each
• 27:21
  other. Like from an efficiency
• 27:23
  standpoint, wouldn't it make more sense to, hey, we've got a
• 27:27
  concept, people like it, let's just copy, paste, copy, paste,
• 27:32
  copy, paste. You're right, it'll be
• 27:36
  absolutely that much easier to do that.
• 27:38
  But we are not into easy stuff and #2 I think that kills a lot
• 27:43
  of the creativity, which is what drives us the best.
• 27:46
  You know, both myself and Alberto, we travel a lot and we,
• 27:52
  we spend our summers in Europe, we travel to Mexico, South
• 27:55
  America a lot. And we always come back to the
• 27:58
  traveling, you know, see the way we look at vacation, the way I
• 28:01
  look at vacation, Sure, it's to relax to enjoy, but it's that is
• 28:06
  a huge discovery part. We always make a point to to go
• 28:11
  to places where I think I could learn, absorb and see something
• 28:16
  different. Obviously keeping an eye on
• 28:19
  hospitality. So the trip always made like,
• 28:22
  which country am I going? Which are the best restaurant?
• 28:25
  Which are the best hotel? Where am I staying?
• 28:27
  Which Michelin star am I dining at?
• 28:30
  Which one is the most rustic, familiar food of the area?
• 28:34
  And then when you come back from these trips, you are so
• 28:37
  energized, you you see things in different light and that gives
• 28:42
  you the opportunity and and the wish of create.
• 28:46
  And that's where we come out with new concepts.
• 28:49
  I just finished reading the book Unreasonable Hospitality I'm.
• 28:53
  Going to one of my favorites. And it really, you know, helped
• 28:56
  somebody who's outside the industry, really helped to open
• 28:59
  my eyes to the passion that people have about what what
• 29:03
  you're just talking about the creativity.
• 29:04
  Like, how can we take this and, and take it to another level?
• 29:08
  And how can we maybe take, you know, an old concept and put a
• 29:12
  little bit of a, a new spin on it?
• 29:14
  And so that's what I think I hear you saying in terms of
• 29:17
  like, yeah, we could come up with one concept and copy,
• 29:20
  paste, copy. But man, there's no fun in that.
• 29:22
  Like we've got the passion and the creativity to continue to
• 29:26
  create and make new ideas. Yeah.
• 29:29
  And I mean, if you look at our brands, we currently have 17
• 29:35
  concepts, 20 restaurants and we have 3 in construction in the
• 29:40
  pipeline right now. You have brands like Taverna.
• 29:45
  Taverna is the most duplicated that we have.
• 29:48
  We have 5. Then you have Toulouse, which we
• 29:52
  have 3. Then you have Penn Nepomodoro,
• 29:55
  which we have two Lombardi, Cucina Italiana, we have two
• 30:00
  Maison Chinois. We are actually opening our
• 30:03
  second one in Houston in about 40 days and Marisol will be Q1
• 30:08
  of next year, which will be our second one.
• 30:10
  So we do duplicate some brands. I believe there is a difference
• 30:16
  of level of restaurants and their duplications.
• 30:20
  A concept like Taverna, it's so genuine, rustic, familiar, a
• 30:26
  little bit of that, you know, old school Italian feeling.
• 30:30
  That is a concept that you can duplicate in every corner of the
• 30:34
  city, right? In every neighborhood of the
• 30:37
  city because it's a neighborhood restaurant.
• 30:40
  But then you have showpieces. Then you have grand restaurants,
• 30:45
  a little bit more on the fine line side like Lombardi, Cucina
• 30:48
  Italiana or Marisol. Those are restaurants that you
• 30:51
  can do maybe one in each city because are more of a legacy
• 30:55
  piece then you know, something that is for a neighborhood.
• 30:59
  So we, we really like to do both because again, we figured it out
• 31:05
  through the course of the year and through the experience of
• 31:07
  Mr. Lombardi that really what makes a restaurant successful is
• 31:13
  hospitality, genuinity and service, the community.
• 31:17
  And, and I think that that's what we do best.
• 31:20
  And being in the neighborhood well, make sure that you make
• 31:23
  people happy, people that live around you, people that live
• 31:26
  life with you, they walk by in front of your restaurant every
• 31:30
  other day. You really become part of
• 31:32
  family. And that is, I think the
• 31:35
  greatest opportunity that we have as we keep growing is to
• 31:38
  find those little niche. So what locations can we find
• 31:44
  most of your restaurants in? So the the majority of our
• 31:48
  locations are in Dallas. OK.
• 31:51
  Then we expand in North Dallas, which a city called Plano and
• 31:57
  then Frisco, which is far North Dallas.
• 32:01
  And just to give you an example to make you understand the
• 32:04
  spaces, Frisco and Dallas are about 30 miles away and our good
• 32:11
  chunk of restaurant is there. We have about 11.
• 32:14
  Then the second best market for us is Houston.
• 32:17
  We love the market and as Mr. Lombardi says all the time, we
• 32:21
  love Houston. Everybody has an accent like us.
• 32:24
  It's very international. By the end of Q1200026, we'll
• 32:30
  have 5 locations in Houston, Austin, then we have a taverna
• 32:36
  in Buckhead, Atlanta, and then we have one in Akuma, Mexico.
• 32:42
  And. When are you coming to Ohio?
• 32:45
  That's probably a little far outside.
• 32:47
  Ohio. Yeah, I heard it snows over
• 32:49
  there. I don't know it's true.
• 32:52
  It is true. I can't deny it.
• 32:54
  Let's talk about your wine program, Your award-winning wine
• 32:59
  program. It's been recognized by Wine
• 33:01
  Spectator for six years. What?
• 33:03
  Led you to. I just got it.
• 33:05
  Global, go ahead, yeah. No, no, no, sorry.
• 33:08
  Finish. I'm sorry.
• 33:09
  No, Yeah, Tell us about it. I want to hear.
• 33:12
  Well, we just got another one so that we'll make it 7 very
• 33:16
  excited about this one because it's a brand new restaurant and
• 33:19
  and you know, it's hard to get A1 spectator award on your first
• 33:22
  year. So we were able to do that with
• 33:25
  Lombardi Gucci in Houston. Big achievement.
• 33:31
  Again, everything starts with passionately, the passion for
• 33:34
  wine and you know, I think it comes also with the culture.
• 33:40
  There are a lot of countries, Italy, because I can speak about
• 33:44
  it, where drinking wine is not about drinking.
• 33:48
  Drinking wine is more about experience it, tasting it,
• 33:52
  enjoying it with food, with company.
• 33:57
  Italy really doesn't have that mentality of going out and go to
• 34:01
  bar and get a couple of drinks. There's always something else
• 34:04
  that is involved with opening a bottle of wine.
• 34:09
  So that has a a very big romance to me.
• 34:14
  So when I started drinking wine professionally, let's say I I
• 34:19
  put a big push on trying everything that I could put my
• 34:21
  hands on. I would go to grocery stores and
• 34:25
  smell the fruits, smell the greens.
• 34:31
  I had actually a little kit that you could put together the
• 34:35
  smells in order to get your nose strained to identify notes
• 34:40
  within the wine within the glass of wine are.
• 34:42
  You a Salman? Yeah.
• 34:43
  I am. OK.
• 34:45
  And so when you start doing that, there's a totally
• 34:49
  different spectrum that that that opens up to you.
• 34:54
  Again, even with this adventure, I was extremely lucky to meet a
• 35:00
  gentleman named Greg Rivera. I met her at an Italian grocery
• 35:05
  store. He was giving free samples and I
• 35:10
  stopped the grocery store and when he was there, I had a
• 35:12
  little sample of wine. I liked the wine.
• 35:14
  We chatted about wine for a little bit.
• 35:16
  It's like you have a really good palate.
• 35:18
  What do you do for a living? I said, you know, I'm a server
• 35:21
  in the restaurant. It's like I have a wine
• 35:22
  distribution company. Would you like to work for me?
• 35:25
  I said sure. So I started working for Greg in
• 35:32
  the mornings as a wine representative.
• 35:36
  I was hitting the account with the little bag of wine, knocking
• 35:38
  on doors, hey, would you like to try my wines?
• 35:41
  And then at night time I was working in the restaurant and
• 35:44
  then I developed from there. He was also an advanced
• 35:48
  Somerdiere with the quartermaster.
• 35:50
  So he guide me the right direction to do my first couple
• 35:53
  of tests with the quartermaster's.
• 35:56
  And then I started writing my own wine lists when I moved in
• 36:02
  New York. And I worked under another good
• 36:05
  song when I was in Florida, Kuhn Kursman, he taught me also a lot
• 36:10
  about wine. He was Belgium, he was from
• 36:13
  Belgium. Very, very smart guy.
• 36:16
  And then I arrived to New York, I became general manager of that
• 36:19
  restaurant. I was telling you about Nova and
• 36:23
  I had the opportunity of writing my own wine list for the first
• 36:26
  time on my own and so sorry. Sorry to interrupt, Danila, but
• 36:30
  I want to understand why. Why the The Wine Spectator Award
• 36:33
  is such a big honor? Why it's so difficult to get,
• 36:37
  especially in your first year? Well, OK, so you're familiar
• 36:40
  with Mission Star, right? You're familiar with that
• 36:44
  process. 1*2*3 stars, three stars here at the top.
• 36:48
  Wine Spectator Award is basically the Mission star for
• 36:51
  wine lists. So.
• 36:54
  Usually on your first year, it's very hard to get the one glass
• 37:00
  recognition simply because when people open a restaurant, a lot
• 37:05
  of times don't have the funds to build and invest in such a great
• 37:10
  wine list because obviously that is an investment with purchasing
• 37:15
  the wine cellar and an inventory, right?
• 37:18
  And so I think my second year in New York, I finally applied for
• 37:24
  Wine Spectator award because I think I'd built a good list with
• 37:27
  good vintages, a good representation of worldly wine.
• 37:32
  And then I got it. You can only imagine that was
• 37:35
  probably one of the happiest day of my life.
• 37:39
  And then obviously I applied every year.
• 37:41
  Every year I tweaked something on the wine list, I adjusted
• 37:43
  something. I kept improving.
• 37:45
  We kept investing and having a larger selection of wine.
• 37:49
  And I think I got in New York all straight up my entire time I
• 37:52
  was there. And then when I arrived at
• 37:54
  Harwood in Dallas, which was my first experience in Dallas, I
• 37:57
  did exactly the same thing. And with one of the one of the
• 38:02
  restaurants that I was running, which is Dolce Viviera at the
• 38:05
  time, we actually achieved the two glasses from Wine Spectator
• 38:10
  and I think we were quoted as one of the best wine programs in
• 38:14
  Dallas at the time. Another very very trouble.
• 38:18
  Let. Me ask something I because I'm
• 38:21
  wondering if you sort of know like who has two or three
• 38:24
  glasses somewhere in the country.
• 38:26
  Why don't you copy their wine list?
• 38:28
  They're like, oh, like those guys know what they're doing.
• 38:31
  They've picked like a lot of really good wines.
• 38:33
  Let's just do exactly what they're doing.
• 38:36
  Well, to be honest with you, I actually never thought of that.
• 38:40
  OK, that's a great idea, but not I think, I think a Psalm it.
• 38:46
  Takes some of the fun and the creativity out of it for you.
• 38:48
  Doesn't it? I think, I think that any Psalms
• 38:51
  really want to create a wine list to showcase their identity.
• 38:56
  And I can tell you there is some of my staff even today that will
• 39:01
  open a wine list. Read through it and they could
• 39:04
  probably tell you this is a Betty Rose wine list.
• 39:07
  OK. Because you.
• 39:09
  You. See how?
• 39:10
  How are your fingerprints on it? What you, you fall in love with
• 39:14
  certain products, you fall in love with certain producer and
• 39:19
  they become a part of you. They've become part of the
• 39:23
  representation of your wide program.
• 39:26
  And some of the producer, I'll tell you, they became my friends
• 39:28
  to the point that my daughters called them uncle and aunt.
• 39:33
  And so somebody flips through the list and they say, oh, this
• 39:36
  wine, that wine, this wine, this wine.
• 39:38
  Oh, he did the list for sure, right.
• 39:41
  Yeah. So.
• 39:43
  I'm sure people listening who are very much into wine, they
• 39:48
  kind of have their favorites. They know sort of the the good
• 39:51
  labels. But maybe for the listeners who
• 39:53
  are like, I would like to try a nice bottle of wine that's not
• 39:56
  going to cost me an arm and a leg.
• 39:58
  What might be some things you point them to?
• 40:02
  Well, if we are talking Old world, specifically Italy, I
• 40:10
  will say that probably one of the best grape that's kind of in
• 40:13
  a middle range, but showcasing incredibly is Etna Rosso.
• 40:19
  Etna Rosso is is Narello Mescalesa, which is an
• 40:25
  indigenous grape that grows at the feet of the volcano and
• 40:31
  Mount Etna, Sicily. Very good wines, either the red
• 40:36
  or the whites are very, very good.
• 40:39
  When it comes down to United States, I think we have a lot of
• 40:42
  different varietals that they're showcase very well at a good
• 40:45
  price point. Anything that is Paso Robles
• 40:49
  Cabs, Sarah, I think Petit Surah also I think given out a lot of
• 40:56
  opportunity to people not to break the bank, but really have
• 41:00
  some good quality wine, especially if they like some of
• 41:03
  that robust, you know, fruitful word type of wine.
• 41:11
  In your role as Vice President of Operations, what's been your
• 41:16
  biggest challenge in maintaining the really high service
• 41:20
  standards that you guys have? Maintaining the people, making
• 41:29
  sure that the staff is valued, making sure that the staff
• 41:33
  understands your long term goal. Take care of them and make sure
• 41:38
  that they stay with you. You know, I think one of the
• 41:42
  main reasons why people go to restaurants today as it was 20
• 41:46
  years ago or 30 years ago is that they get recognized, they
• 41:50
  get recognized, they get taken care of.
• 41:54
  I've seen in our industry the level and the quality of people
• 41:58
  as going down tremendously majority of the time because
• 42:04
  yesterday was seen as a career job.
• 42:08
  Today is no longer seen as a career job.
• 42:10
  Today I'm working in a restaurant because I'm going to
• 42:12
  college and I need to pay for my studies and I go to college and
• 42:16
  I work in a restaurant 2-3 years and that's it.
• 42:18
  That is no seeking for excellence.
• 42:21
  That is not wanting to better yourself in that industry
• 42:24
  because you know, it's just temporary.
• 42:26
  Back in the days when I started, back in the days when Mr.
• 42:30
  Lombardi started and, and, and any of these veterans, it was a
• 42:34
  career job. Their goal was to starting from
• 42:36
  a bus or becoming a waiter, becoming a manager and possibly
• 42:40
  having the opportunity of becoming an owner down the road.
• 42:44
  So maintaining my staff, it's one of the biggest challenge,
• 42:50
  but also one of the best rewards because it definitely allows us
• 42:55
  to give that exceptional level of hospitality that I think we
• 43:00
  deliver the majority of the times in the restaurants.
• 43:04
  So what are some things that you found that have been helpful in
• 43:08
  recruiting new folks? So as a company, Anthony, I have
• 43:14
  a specific philosophy and you know, I learned also from Mr.
• 43:20
  Lombardi a lot. Of course, we have an array of
• 43:23
  people that have been working for us from 30 to 42 years.
• 43:29
  I actually think we have one bartender that has been with Mr.
• 43:33
  Lombardi for 44 years. His name is Fernando and me in
• 43:42
  my smaller time in hospitality, I have some of my directors,
• 43:46
  some of my servers. They have been with me since
• 43:49
  2009 when I was in New York and some of them were with me at
• 43:56
  Harwood and when I moved over they decided to follow me here.
• 44:00
  How do we achieve that? Well, we need to achieve that by
• 44:04
  making them a priority and let them know that you are there for
• 44:07
  them and that your growth equals their growth.
• 44:13
  You know, everybody a lot of times talks a lot of smack about
• 44:19
  Gen. Z, about the new generation.
• 44:22
  They don't want to work. They don't have this, they don't
• 44:25
  have that. I think that is not accurate.
• 44:27
  I I think that put the failing is the leadership.
• 44:32
  You can talk to a Gen. Z the same way you talk to my
• 44:35
  generation or your generation of generation.
• 44:38
  Previous people are different. They, they, they see things
• 44:42
  differently. But I think if you get through
• 44:44
  it and you make them see the light at the end of the tunnel,
• 44:47
  you give them a path and a clear explanation of where you should
• 44:52
  go or how we should do it. Or let me teach you how to do
• 44:55
  this that you'll getting unbelievable results from the
• 44:59
  younger generation as well. Where's?
• 45:02
  The future of Lombardi heading. Well, we were blessed to have an
• 45:11
  incredible growth in the past couple of years.
• 45:15
  We opened some incredible restaurants, very, very blessed.
• 45:18
  As I told you, we have about 3 in construction right now, some
• 45:23
  other developing and projects in the pipeline.
• 45:27
  Our goal is to keep growing, expanding out of state.
• 45:33
  It's something that we are evaluating even though we do
• 45:36
  have two restaurants out of state, but we kind of focused
• 45:40
  right after COVID. We really focused in the state
• 45:44
  more than anything else, you know, little bit because
• 45:47
  restriction. We're traveling at a time a
• 45:49
  little bit because you know, Texas was a little bit different
• 45:53
  as far as other states were opening up.
• 45:55
  That's the Texas was faster. It gave us the opportunity to go
• 45:59
  back to work fairly quickly. So we wanted to focus there and
• 46:03
  obviously we have a good name here.
• 46:06
  People know what we do and we want to keep exploring some
• 46:10
  pockets of the state and keep growing that for sure.
• 46:16
  Danilo, I want to shift gears and talk about a serious
• 46:20
  challenge or two that you've overcome in your life.
• 46:23
  How'd you get through those? What did you learn?
• 46:28
  So that the probably one of the toughest time that I had in life
• 46:34
  when I was telling you before about my experience of opening
• 46:36
  that restaurant in Miami at 2324 years old.
• 46:41
  And I told you I took the job without really knowing what I
• 46:44
  was doing. However, I was in it, I was in
• 46:49
  it. I took the ship, I was the
• 46:51
  captain and I kept moving forward.
• 46:54
  I don't think I had a day off for the first 6-7 months.
• 46:58
  We kept the restaurant open for about 2 1/2 years.
• 47:02
  Unfortunately, the economical situation, Miami was what it was
• 47:05
  and we lost everything, absolutely everything.
• 47:09
  I lost everything. And you know, the investors in
• 47:13
  the restaurant were made guys. They had their chunk.
• 47:19
  They had things to fall back to. I want to I.
• 47:23
  Want to clarify made guys 'cause that means one thing to people
• 47:27
  who watch movies and maybe you meant it a different way.
• 47:31
  Yeah. I mean, like there were older
• 47:33
  guys that they were, you know, gentlemen that already were
• 47:36
  financially stable. Not mafioso.
• 47:39
  No, no, no, no. Nothing like that.
• 47:42
  OK, please continue with your story.
• 47:44
  These were guys who were well established financially.
• 47:47
  They didn't like losing the money, but it was OK.
• 47:49
  Their lives went on. You, on the other hand, were
• 47:51
  just up and coming and now you're flat broke.
• 47:54
  That's it. I'm done, Anthony.
• 47:55
  I'm done. I have no money in my pocket.
• 47:58
  My car is getting repossessed. I'm getting evicted from my
• 48:02
  apartment. I had one thing to fall back and
• 48:06
  that was that little house that I told you that I bought in Boca
• 48:09
  Raton, FL in 2003. So I left downtown Miami because
• 48:15
  the restaurant that I'm talking about was in downtown Miami.
• 48:19
  Brickell to be exactly. I left Brickell with not a dime.
• 48:23
  I went back home destroyed, lost.
• 48:26
  Everything felt completely broken.
• 48:31
  I felt my name was tarnished, even though I didn't really have
• 48:34
  that much of A name at the time. But it was a feeling, right?
• 48:38
  And I'm like, I failed. I completely failed.
• 48:42
  I didn't listen to this person. I didn't listen to that person.
• 48:45
  They were right. I was wrong.
• 48:47
  And now I got to eat it. And so I went back to, to Boca
• 48:52
  Raton, FL and I went back serving tables, fell back on
• 48:58
  what I knew again, no money to pay rent, No, no money to pay
• 49:03
  that mortgage that I promised my dad I was going to pay.
• 49:07
  And I had to work hard. I, I found a job in a, in a
• 49:14
  sunglasses store in the morning. I was selling sunglasses, which
• 49:17
  is actually, that's a super funny story.
• 49:19
  I'm going to tell you about that.
• 49:22
  I'm walking to the store wanting to buy sunglasses and the owner
• 49:28
  of the company was actually in the store and I don't know if
• 49:32
  you know this. Have you ever heard about
• 49:34
  Solstice the sunglasses store? OK.
• 49:37
  So the CFO, one part owner was there owned?
• 49:40
  By like Luxottica. Or Luxottica, Correct.
• 49:43
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, Luxottica. Yeah.
• 49:46
  Safilo, Safilo. And anyway, so these guys there,
• 49:49
  I don't know who he was. He doesn't know who I am.
• 49:51
  I'm just there. I'm speaking Italian and I'm
• 49:54
  trying to buy these sunglasses. These guys next to me turns
• 49:57
  around and he's like hey what are you doing, where you from,
• 49:59
  blah blah blah blah blah. He turns around to the manager
• 50:03
  and says please make sure you give this guy a job.
• 50:06
  So within a couple weeks I kept bugging to manager of the store
• 50:10
  because I really needed a job and they hired me.
• 50:15
  So I was working in the in the sunglasses store in the morning.
• 50:18
  I had my server uniform in the car and I was getting dressed in
• 50:24
  the car from the store to the restaurant, went back serving,
• 50:29
  kept working, saved myself out of that or whatever I had at the
• 50:33
  time, and, you know, built that cup.
• 50:36
  And then the New York call came about in 2009.
• 50:40
  And then I got to New York. And as I said to you before,
• 50:45
  that was a very formative experience because the owner of
• 50:49
  the restaurant lived downstate while the restaurant was
• 50:53
  upstate. And you know, I just had to
• 50:56
  figure it out, whatever it was, whether it was a, a plumbing
• 50:59
  issue, whether there was a kitchen issue, chef issue,
• 51:02
  server issue, that's it. You had to.
• 51:04
  Figure it out. Yeah, 2026 years old figured it
• 51:07
  out and that was that's cool. Yeah.
• 51:10
  I want to go back to sort of the beginning of this where that
• 51:13
  restaurant failed 'cause it, I mean, you used I think the
• 51:17
  appropriate terms, right? Devastating.
• 51:18
  You felt broken, right? It felt like you, you had
• 51:21
  failed. And you know, there's a part of
• 51:24
  you that just wants to, I'm sure, just stick your head under
• 51:27
  the covers and be like, I, I just want to, I want to wake up
• 51:31
  from this nightmare. But that's not what you did.
• 51:34
  I mean, you, you did a little bit of sort of like going back
• 51:36
  and licking your wounds, but like, I went and found a job.
• 51:39
  I hustled to get this restaurant job.
• 51:42
  I hustled to get this this second job at the sunglass store
• 51:46
  so I could start paying my bills, so I could get out of
• 51:48
  debt. And you just, I mean, tell me if
• 51:51
  I'm putting words in your mouth. But it was kind of AI, don't
• 51:54
  know what's coming next, but I got to figure out how to put 1
• 51:56
  foot in front of the other. No, absolutely, you're
• 51:59
  absolutely right. And you know also there is a
• 52:01
  there is an element of embarrassment.
• 52:04
  There is a an element that really wants to to disappear,
• 52:08
  but you can't because keep things keep coming towards you.
• 52:12
  They're they're not stopping. And I'm going to be a very
• 52:16
  honest with you. I, I think, I think I went, I
• 52:19
  don't know if I did, but I think I went through maybe three to
• 52:22
  four months of very deep depression.
• 52:25
  And I think I pushed a lot of comfort on food, gain a ton of
• 52:33
  weight. And my mom, my mom flew over and
• 52:39
  spent a couple of months with me and you know, she was next to me
• 52:44
  and helping me out and kind of like trying to get out of it.
• 52:48
  And I actually, I just told the story 2 days ago to one of my
• 52:52
  staff. I was in my patio one afternoon
• 52:57
  and I'm just not crying, but very sad.
• 53:00
  And I kept saying to my mother, I said, I'm never going to be
• 53:04
  able to make it. Everything I'm trying to do,
• 53:07
  everything I try to achieve, everything that I put my foot
• 53:10
  on, it's it's going wrong. You know, at the time I also had
• 53:14
  a personal bad relationship that had a bad breakup as well, all
• 53:19
  at the same time, of course. And I, I was really down.
• 53:23
  I said to my mother, I said, no way, this is not happening.
• 53:25
  I mean, it's I'm done. Nothing is coming my way.
• 53:29
  I don't know what I did, but nothing good will come out.
• 53:32
  And I'm just destined to, to be here and get stuck here.
• 53:35
  My mom got really upset, and for the first time in my life, I
• 53:40
  think somebody put me up to understanding the power of
• 53:45
  yourself will, the power of being resilient, the power of
• 53:51
  being positive. And I think through that
• 53:53
  conversation with my mother, that's what she wanted me to
• 53:56
  take home was, hey, wake up. You need to be positive.
• 54:01
  You need to shake this off. And whatever it's going to take,
• 54:04
  you're going to have to do it. And that's it.
• 54:06
  And from that moment, I think couple more months of kind of
• 54:14
  being OK. And then I got that call from
• 54:17
  New York and I took that ball and I ran with it and I said I
• 54:21
  need a change. I need fresh air, I need new
• 54:25
  locations, I need to restart. And that, that was it.
• 54:29
  That was it. But you know, Anthony, obviously
• 54:31
  you understand not easy, very challenging, and the good
• 54:38
  support obviously helps because it puts you in the right
• 54:41
  mindset. I think this is a really great
• 54:43
  story for our listeners because, you know, for people who haven't
• 54:46
  been through it before, when you lose a business, and this is
• 54:50
  going to sound melodramatic if you haven't walked in in these
• 54:53
  footsteps before, but it feels like a death.
• 54:57
  Like it feels like somebody very close to you has died because
• 55:03
  you, it's an inanimate thing, right?
• 55:07
  But you've put so much time and energy and pride and there are
• 55:10
  people who lost money. And so it feels like a part of
• 55:14
  you now is missing. So I want to highlight that.
• 55:18
  So people who people who have been through that, they're
• 55:21
  sitting on the other end of this and they're like nodding their
• 55:23
  head. They're like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 55:24
  People who haven't been through it, if you have a friend or a
• 55:28
  loved one who's going through it, has gone through it, may go
• 55:30
  through it in the future, have your antenna up for that because
• 55:34
  it is an incredibly debilitating experience.
• 55:38
  And having the support of loved ones around you to come and prop
• 55:43
  you up like your mother did for you is, you know, it is just
• 55:48
  everything. It's huge.
• 55:50
  And, and I think as human beings, a lot of times we make
• 55:53
  this mistake. I raised my hand.
• 55:55
  I've done it over and over again of thinking that the feeling in
• 55:59
  the present moment is permanent. Exactly, Yeah.
• 56:05
  When it's not, everything changes.
• 56:07
  This too shall pass. That's why, you know, I, I use
• 56:11
  this line over and over again on the show. 1 foot in front of the
• 56:14
  other. You don't know what's going to
• 56:15
  come next, but you got to get up and you got to move and you got
• 56:18
  to create that forward momentum just and that's exactly what you
• 56:22
  did in this story. And then that call from New York
• 56:24
  came, and now you're off to the races again.
• 56:28
  Yeah. And and you know, the most
• 56:29
  beautiful part of that, Anthony, is actually we're talking about
• 56:33
  staff, we're talking about people underneath you that
• 56:35
  collaborate with you, work for you, however people want to
• 56:38
  describe it. I think some of these kids need
• 56:41
  a lot of that too. And for those people that went
• 56:45
  through it like me and that finally had that moment with
• 56:49
  their mentality completely turned around and they started
• 56:52
  hitting life with that positivity and speaking in
• 56:57
  existence what they want and have the, you know, the
• 57:01
  willpower to go and get it. These needs to be transferred.
• 57:06
  These needs to be transferred to other people and needs to be
• 57:10
  open, you know, and make people see because, you know, sometimes
• 57:14
  we realize that, you know, the life that we live is different
• 57:18
  than than other people life. And you know, some of the kids
• 57:23
  that work for me work for us. They live there by day.
• 57:27
  And some of them might be in the same scenario in different
• 57:31
  situation, but they live pay to pay, paycheck to paycheck, and
• 57:36
  they don't know how to make it to the end of the month and this
• 57:38
  and that. And, you know, sharing the story
• 57:41
  of, hey, you know, Rohi Balboa said it the same in an interview
• 57:45
  a while ago. It's not about how many times
• 57:48
  you get knocked out. How many times do you get up?
• 57:53
  How much can you take? But still, go for it.
• 57:57
  You know, like almost. A responsibility then to take
• 58:02
  some of the lessons that have been handed to you and the help
• 58:04
  that's been given to you and pass that along to your
• 58:08
  employees. 150% if I don't do that, I would not be a good
• 58:14
  leader. If I can only teach them how to
• 58:17
  serve or a bottle of wine and I cannot teach them how to go
• 58:21
  through life, then I'm not a good leader.
• 58:26
  You know, it, it's, it's more than it's more than work.
• 58:29
  You know, you, you taking on the responsibility of hiring
• 58:32
  somebody And, and you know, truth to be told, Anthony, there
• 58:35
  are some people that you develop better relationship with than
• 58:38
  others. But you know, every time I get a
• 58:42
  call from somebody that needs help and you know, whether it is
• 58:46
  a server, whether it is some people in that management team,
• 58:49
  I'm always there. I need to be there.
• 58:51
  I have a responsibility to do so.
• 58:54
  You know, I'm, I'm not just here delivering a job for somebody
• 58:59
  has I don't expect my staff to just deliver a service to
• 59:04
  somebody at the table. And and I was incredibly blessed
• 59:07
  to follow and join a company where the founder of the company
• 59:11
  feels exactly the same way. I'm not going to go to details,
• 59:15
  but you know, in our company, we went through times that we had
• 59:19
  to bail people out of jail. We had to lend them money
• 59:24
  because their family here and there were in needs.
• 59:28
  That's that's what I think it's human to do, kind to do, and
• 59:32
  important. You know, I'm glad that you
• 59:35
  mentioned those two stories, even though we don't need the
• 59:39
  detail, but we get it. Like there were people in need,
• 59:42
  they were in jail, they needed some help that, you know, there,
• 59:45
  there was debt, you made loans. Because you know, a lot of times
• 59:49
  people talk about the culture of their company and maybe their
• 59:53
  mission statement. And for a lot of people, when
• 59:56
  they hear that, especially if they haven't worked somewhere
• 1:00:00
  where that culture is something very positive and it's a it's a
• 1:00:05
  strong foundation, they kind of roll their eyes at it.
• 1:00:09
  Like, what does that mean? Good culture?
• 1:00:10
  That sounds like a buzzword everybody uses.
• 1:00:13
  Yeah. But you know, when you, you
• 1:00:15
  mentioned a couple of those examples, I, I think that really
• 1:00:18
  helps to illustrate for people like how much you really care
• 1:00:21
  about the folks that you work with.
• 1:00:23
  It is, it is important, it is extremely important and and I
• 1:00:27
  guess that's why our company has the retention that it has.
• 1:00:31
  You know, Alberto says it a lot too, is one of these lines.
• 1:00:35
  It's Lombardi family concepts. There is the Word family there
• 1:00:39
  for a reason. We want our staff to feel like
• 1:00:44
  family. We want our guests to feel like
• 1:00:47
  family. And so it's not the transaction.
• 1:00:53
  It's something that has a lot more than that.
• 1:00:54
  You got to have natural feelings.
• 1:00:59
  Putting all humility aside, Danilo, what is your superpower?
• 1:01:12
  I don't know. I think, I think, I think my, I
• 1:01:15
  think positivity. If I got I, if I got to say one
• 1:01:19
  thing, I, I, I wake up happy every morning, Anthony, because
• 1:01:25
  I'm blessed. I'm alive, of course, but I get
• 1:01:28
  to do a job that I absolutely adore.
• 1:01:32
  Going to work energizes me. Going to meetings, good to meet
• 1:01:36
  people. You never know what you're going
• 1:01:37
  to find on the streets. You might walk into a restaurant
• 1:01:41
  today and you meet the president of Mexico or you meeting Messi,
• 1:01:47
  you meeting a football player or, you know, today, these
• 1:01:50
  afternoon at lunch, I walking through one of our restaurants
• 1:01:53
  and there was these super sweet lady and she was dying by
• 1:01:58
  herself. So I stopped by the table.
• 1:01:59
  I said, hey, how you doing? How's your bill?
• 1:02:01
  Is the team treating you well? She's like, Oh my God, I love
• 1:02:04
  the manager here. They treat me so good.
• 1:02:06
  And then she's like, are you Italian?
• 1:02:07
  She said yes. I said, oh, my family's Italian.
• 1:02:10
  Where you from? My daughter lives here and they
• 1:02:12
  live in Tuscany. She just wanted to talk, right?
• 1:02:17
  She just wanted to talk. And I was there and I listened
• 1:02:20
  and it was fun. And now I know so much more
• 1:02:23
  about her family. But filled a nice part of each
• 1:02:27
  other's day. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:02:29
  It's be positive of everything that life tries to to throw at
• 1:02:33
  you and you know, always, you know, have the mentality of the
• 1:02:38
  glass is always not full. Do you have anything that you do
• 1:02:44
  to help kick off your day in a positive way?
• 1:02:47
  Any rituals or habits? Routines.
• 1:02:52
  Espresso. How did I know that was coming?
• 1:02:57
  No, I. Italian friend, I would expect
• 1:03:00
  nothing less. I try to, I try to work out at
• 1:03:05
  least four to five days. And the workout to me is
• 1:03:10
  important because I do it extremely early in the morning,
• 1:03:12
  about 5:00 AM and it's one of the only times during the day
• 1:03:17
  that I'm by myself. And so that gives me the
• 1:03:20
  opportunity to be clear minded with myself, kind of plan what I
• 1:03:27
  need to do, what I have to do. Then you know, I'm going to the
• 1:03:31
  gym. To me, yes, it's work out and
• 1:03:33
  staying healthy and everything else.
• 1:03:34
  But I do love the aspect of sauna and Steven, oops again.
• 1:03:39
  It's not a 15 or 20 minutes where you got no phone, there is
• 1:03:43
  no ringers, there is no beeper and you are in a room with
• 1:03:47
  nobody because you can't see them because it's fog and you
• 1:03:52
  just there and you just relax and you focus.
• 1:03:54
  That really helps me to kick my day off in a different way.
• 1:03:59
  I love a good steam room. Followed up by.
• 1:04:01
  An ice cold shower and like now all of a sudden my body is.
• 1:04:05
  Just or or a plunge, that's the best.
• 1:04:09
  You, you are more hardcore than I am.
• 1:04:11
  The plunge is a little tough for me, but I can I can appreciate
• 1:04:14
  the value in it. I feel like you get shocked with
• 1:04:19
  energy when you get out of there.
• 1:04:21
  It's just everything is alive, you know?
• 1:04:25
  How about a resource that you might recommend to our
• 1:04:28
  listeners? A book, a podcast, a course that
• 1:04:31
  you've taken, something that was helpful for you.
• 1:04:35
  Well, for people that start going into the wine business, I
• 1:04:40
  think the Wine Bible by Karen Miller, it's probably one of the
• 1:04:47
  simplest book that really helps you to understand wind region
• 1:04:53
  and maps and gives you some of like the first grounds on on
• 1:04:57
  wine. I listen to a lot of different
• 1:05:01
  podcast. I also had other interest
• 1:05:05
  besides hospitality. I I like real estate a lot.
• 1:05:10
  I listen to Grant Cardone a lot. I like not not only suggestions
• 1:05:17
  about, you know, the industry back in the days, but also a lot
• 1:05:21
  of his more dimensional stuff, you know, the guys from 11
• 1:05:25
  Medicine, as you mentioned, Will, I listened to his podcasts
• 1:05:30
  a lot, read a couple of his books.
• 1:05:32
  I think they're inspirational. Yeah, that's, that's pretty much
• 1:05:38
  it. That's.
• 1:05:39
  A good. List now.
• 1:05:42
  Thank you. Are you using AI in your work?
• 1:05:47
  So on, on the marketing standpoint, we are definitely
• 1:05:52
  seeing the majority of AI work being implemented, whether it is
• 1:05:58
  with, you know, posts or creation of posts or logos or
• 1:06:03
  anything like that. And then it's, I think one of
• 1:06:05
  the easiest way to do it. Also in the designs of our
• 1:06:10
  restaurant, ICAI implemented a lot.
• 1:06:14
  Obviously we come up with ideas, with photos, sketches, and then,
• 1:06:18
  you know, we use a couple of programs with AI that start
• 1:06:21
  giving us a little bit of a first shot of what we think the
• 1:06:24
  restaurant will look like or what the interior will look
• 1:06:26
  like. Obviously, we had that over to
• 1:06:29
  interior designers and they take it from there.
• 1:06:32
  The latest one that we started is actually in our phone
• 1:06:35
  systems. You know, we have a couple of
• 1:06:39
  locations that do not do lunch, they only do dinner.
• 1:06:43
  And we felt that we were losing some of those phone calls
• 1:06:46
  because nobody was in the restaurant to pick them up.
• 1:06:48
  And So what happened in the past is some people call, they leave
• 1:06:51
  a message, the manager comes in at two or three or whatever that
• 1:06:55
  might be, and they got to go through that answering machine
• 1:06:57
  and, you know, scramble back up to call all these people back.
• 1:07:01
  We felt that we lost a little bit of business because of that
• 1:07:04
  because managers were not super efficient on getting back to
• 1:07:07
  people. So we started adding these
• 1:07:10
  elements over AI in these restaurants where they pick up
• 1:07:14
  the call, the call themselves and they are able to make
• 1:07:16
  reservations through links in other applications.
• 1:07:20
  And in some of these locations, we actually saw at 17% growth on
• 1:07:25
  reservations. Wow, that's.
• 1:07:27
  Significant, yeah. Dino, I think I've just got one
• 1:07:31
  more question for you, but before I ask it, I want to do 2
• 1:07:33
  things. First of all, everyone
• 1:07:35
  listening. Pause for just a second, go to
• 1:07:37
  that podcast app that you're using right now.
• 1:07:39
  Go ahead and hit the follow or subscribe button.
• 1:07:42
  We've had a wonderful conversation today with Danilo
• 1:07:45
  Dinardo from Lombardi Family Concept, and I want you to
• 1:07:48
  continue to get more wonderful interviews like this in your
• 1:07:51
  feed. And if you've got an extra
• 1:07:53
  second, you can leave us a review or a comment helps other
• 1:07:55
  people find us. I want to let people know the
• 1:08:00
  best way to get in touch with you or Lombardi or follow your
• 1:08:03
  story. And what would that be?
• 1:08:06
  Well, obviously to our website, lombardifamilyconcept.com or you
• 1:08:12
  know, on Instagram it'll be fairly easy or Facebook, same
• 1:08:16
  thing. Lombardi Family concept.com for
• 1:08:19
  those that want to get in touch directly with me, you know,
• 1:08:22
  Instagram probably will be the easiest way to do it.
• 1:08:24
  Then Eva Leonardo number 83 and you know, it's amazing how
• 1:08:31
  again, it's another way of making incredible connection.
• 1:08:35
  We will love to hear from anybody that is in Dallas, wants
• 1:08:38
  to be in Dallas, traveling in Dallas wants to come see us or
• 1:08:41
  experience or chat Evan Espresso, whatever.
• 1:08:44
  I I think we're pretty open and we just so excited to meet new
• 1:08:48
  people because you never know what's going to come out of it
• 1:08:50
  love. It So last question for you,
• 1:08:52
  Danilo, you and I reconnect a year from now and you're
• 1:08:55
  celebrating one thing, really excited.
• 1:08:58
  What's that one thing you're celebrating one year from now?
• 1:09:03
  And I know you're a beautiful girl from my daughters.
• 1:09:07
  I love that you went personal. How old are your daughters?
• 1:09:12
  You know, so I have Isabella, she's the oldest, she's 8.
• 1:09:16
  Juliana, she's 6. And Sienna, it's four.
• 1:09:20
  And my most incredible wife that's been with me through
• 1:09:24
  thick and tin for 19 years. Anthony, I think, you know, we
• 1:09:29
  talk about business, we talk about experience, but I think at
• 1:09:32
  the end of the day, all we do, we do it for family.
• 1:09:35
  And you know, one time I was talking to this older guy
• 1:09:38
  actually, and he said, you know, your time is over.
• 1:09:42
  Everything you're building right now is not for you.
• 1:09:44
  It's for your children. Your life is off, off.
• 1:09:47
  We're done. So whatever you do, make sure
• 1:09:50
  that you build it for them. And I think it's very true.
• 1:09:55
  You know, all we do as parents are little things that are going
• 1:10:01
  to be making their life easier, make a better opportunity, give
• 1:10:06
  them better opportunity. So if I work this hard, as much
• 1:10:12
  as I love my job and what I do and what we're building, if I
• 1:10:15
  work this hard is only to give my family a better future.
• 1:10:19
  And so if that is 1 wish that I have is to really achieve that.
• 1:10:27
  Danilo Di Nardo from Lombardi Family Concepts.
• 1:10:30
  I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time
• 1:10:32
  and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.
• 1:10:35
  Thank you. It was an honor to be here with
• 1:10:37
  you today. Thank you so much.
• 1:10:39
  Folks, that's a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories
• 1:10:42
  podcast. Thanks for learning with us
• 1:10:44
  today.