 Welcome to Start Up the Storefront, presented by Aurobora. All right, welcome to the podcast on today's show. We're talking with a team from Giada. Thank you guys for coming. Thanks for having us. Any one of you can take this. We got Jersey in the house. What is Giada? Oh, yeah. Let's start with the name. Yeah, yeah. So I'm Noah. This is Max. This is Jack. Three of us grew up in Montclair, New Jersey. Childhood friends from the time we were seven or eight years old. So cool. And, you know, we grew up in a town of 40,000 people, but for those 40,000 people had nine or 10 really amazing Italian delis that serviced that town. So essentially a deli for every 4,000 people. And we moved in into Marvista, Los Angeles, 2018, and we spent a year going to all the spots that our East Coast friends out here said were like home, you know, all the Italian delis and found some amazing sandwiches along the way, but nothing that really resembled the kind of spots that we grew up loving in Jersey. So I'm working in tech at the time. Jack is in consulting, Max is in fashion. Not exactly the secret recipe you would think about when trying to open a hospitality group. But you know, we were young. We were pretty fucking stupid. How old are you guys at the time? We were 23. OK. 23. Like fresh out. 23 was like, I love it. I love it. Yeah. We opened when we were 24. OK. In the middle of the pandemic. Yeah. Great timing. Yeah. Whatever, which in this case was a benefit for us. Yeah. And so, yeah, we work on the brand around Giada. We work on the concept and menu for about a year and then why the name? What does the name mean? So there's this phrase in Italian, passeggiata, which is like this evening stroll that families take in Italy, where the sole purpose is like literally just transported me right. Yeah. That's like romantic as fuck. Say that again. And the sole purpose of this stroll is literally just to like see your neighbors and talk shit and drink some wine and hang out. And we love that idea. And that's amazing. We opened Giada in the start of the pandemic. Because the only thing you could do is take those, you know, I remember doing that with wine all across the neighborhood. Yeah. When we first came up with the idea, we wanted to try to build out a like speakeasy version. And like passeggiata was going to be like deli in the front and nightclub in the back. And we quickly realized we were trying, biting off more than we could chew with that. Yeah. We wanted a name with duality. Yeah. Giada part, passe in French means like out of style and given the turnover of clubs and nightlife. We thought it was really ironic to name the nightlife concept passe. And then Giada alone means nothing in Italian. And but it feels like it should like there's so many people that like, what does it mean? Nothing. But it's just such a beautiful word. And we love the double G. Like, you know, it's had as a great example of how we use that. But yeah, the name is a fun story to tell. And I think the phrase for me, it's always been interesting because like we're a neighborhood deli, like third thing. That's what we want to be. And like a term like that feels so fitting to be like what it's derived from. I really love that. And so what's the first step in the process? So one, your bread is amazing. Just it's incredible. So I don't know. But what's the first step in going through and making the best sandwich shop in LA? You know, I think we probably did it totally the opposite of the way that you would think a restaurant would come to fruition. Right. You think that there's a chef who's been spending 20 years honing their talent, you know, they partner with somebody who has a business background, the menu they've been working on for 20 years in their head. And then the next day, a restaurant spits out. We were, I remember in Max's bedroom, printing out crazy old Campari posters and researching Italian futurism because the way that our brains worked were like the brand is centric, right? We're brand centric. That's the kind of pivotal piece here and we spent maybe like nine or 10 of the 12 months working on the logo and the brand and the way that it would look and feel. And then we realized that, like, we got to open this thing in a month and we're like, fuck, we don't have a menu. And so then we were like, oh, we've got to figure that out. We did it completely backwards. I kind of love that, though, because you saw something that that's what's missing in the space, to some extent. Which ended up kind of making sense for us, not to like jump ahead, but we pretty much launched out of a commissary kitchen. OK. So for us, it really worked out well that we had like a brand that really worked because that was the only thing that existed was our Instagram. You couldn't come and experience like the shop and get a vibe for what we were trying to create. So we pretty much had to be able to convince you to come eat our food and trust our like brand and story based off of what you're seeing online. What was the strategy there? What were you doing that was a little bit different than like, and again, I know the bar could be low where it's like they're just taking pictures of a sandwich with shitty lighting. But what are you guys doing that's different? Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I think it comes down to a little bit of the bones of like what we tried to build the brand on, which was like passage. You have to make us feel super nostalgic. And a lot of the images that came from that were like those old time feels. And we were like, we should build a brand that gives you the feeling of what it's like to go. You're from the East Coast. So you know what it is to like go to one of these old time nostalgic delis, but also sprinkling some like we're 24 years old and some modern version in California version. So we were like, let's try to steer away from all of the colors you would think of that are traditional Italian deli with the reds and the greens and the whites and go something completely different and like try to try to like build on that. So I think not only was it dark time with it being like COVID and the pandemic, but I think having it feel like a different iteration of things that people like knew and grew up on. Sure, like the evolution of it. Yeah, almost like your story, right? You grew up in Jersey. You get used to one thing, then you moved to LA and now you're just you're evolving it. And I also think like the to your question about what we were doing differently, I think it's kind of like changed as the as Giada has evolved. Like I think in the cloud kitchen to Max's point, a lot of it was like just how the brand existed digitally and like trying to channel like nostalgic visuals on our feed, because that was literally all we could do to market to people. Since we've entered our brick and mortar stores, I think we've like taken that and try to expand it out into like the store experience. Like when you think about a Giada store, like we want that to be like a very special moment for you to come into our store, to look around, see the shelf covered in little Easter eggs and make you think about your childhood and you want to take a picture of the wall of the, you know, custom art we do. And so like, I think whenever we think about like Giada, how it exists, it's always supposed to be like, what is that special experience? It feels memorable for you. And so and that's been, I think, kind of the tenant of how we think about the brand. I would say too, like we were very aware that we weren't skilled chefs and trained culinary professionals. So I think what we did to kind of compensate for that was over invest in the quality of ingredients that you would normally think a deli would would offer. So you mentioned the bread. We tried probably 60 different bakeries before we decided on bread lounge, which is where we currently get our bread from. And like, you know, bread lounge, there are other clients are nice upscale sit down Italian restaurants. But if you're going to open it at a sandwich shop, most important aspect of what you do is your bread. So we said, let's over invest. And like, you know, maybe the unit economics aren't perfectly efficient on that item. But fuck it. Like this is the most important thing. We're going to go and get the best bread. And that I think mindset carried down throughout the entire menu. Like let's go and source the best heirloom tomatoes from the, you know, from local farmers and X and Y and Z. So we knew, like we had to compensate for the fact that we're not wizards in there in the kitchen. And let's just get the best shit. I literally remember in COVID you saying something like, you can't fuck up good ingredients. You know, it's funny, we were talking on off air about this, but it's like, that's kind of one of the beauties of LA is that you have the port right here. And so your access to these ingredients, the farms are, it's incredible. It's a lot easier, which is amazing. How were you guys financing this? Were you guys just like working and then putting all your money you had into this? I mean, the really fortunate thing about the time we opened was that that cloud kitchen was sitting half vacant and they were just desperate to find people willing to take that risk and open something. And so we were, you know, in June, we got in there for maybe $20,000. Like, you know, we had enough communally in our savings to kind of just put that up and hope that, you know, it led to more success. And so we were in there for barely any down payment. The equipment was already in the door, and the staff initially was this table. Yeah, so. Plus a few friends are in Jersey, you were out here. We literally, yeah, we had some friends fly out to help you guys out. Yeah, so that was the initial kind of financing, you could call it. And then by the time we opened our first brick and mortar, we were really fortunate to meet a family that the Lazary family that are from the East Coast and knew our story and had a very big real estate development in Melrose Hill. And we were, you know, we got a really great TI package from them that lowered the cost to open that store. But, you know, we've raised some investor capital since then, but the initial launch was real bare bones. When you guys first started getting the orders and what's the promotion like? What's happening? Is Uber helping you out? What is, what's going on? Who did Uber? Yeah, we were sworn enemies. The funny thing is the first day, and I remember it literally like it was yesterday, it's, you know, also it's June of 2020. So nobody's, you know, there's no in-person experience anywhere. It's all virtual. It's all, and so like in that, at that moment, everything in food was about this legendary restaurant that closed. They couldn't make it, they couldn't weather the storm of the pandemic. So everything was so negative. We were one of the very few bright spots, right? Who opens a restaurant in the middle of a global pandemic. There weren't many people. So I think we had some eyes on us from the start just cause we were doing something probably that didn't make any sense. But I remember the first day we opened and we turned on the Uber Eats and the Postmates and the DoorDash and like the first 20 orders were all names that we recognized. So people that we went to school with, it was our friends. People from New Jersey were literally just changing the zip code, like hope you guys have. It's like somebody's long lost aunt that had heard about it, like do the grapevine. So the first, you know, 20, 25 orders that we serviced were all friends. And I remember like once we got to the 20th order, we opened at 11 a.m. We got like 20 orders in the first two hours. Looked like a bomb had gone off in the kitchen. We were like, shut it down. Shut it down. It was like the bear. Like if Karmie didn't actually know what he was doing. That's hilarious. Shut it down. And meanwhile, you know, now in a day we're doing like 250 orders on a Tuesday or Wednesday at our shops and it's fine. But that first day, trying to get those 20 orders out the door was like crazy. You know, we talk about the store in Melrose Hill now, but the truth is what we had to go through to get to that point. Like we had no fucking idea what we were doing. That's really the truth of it. We had no idea and we were lucky enough to bring a few people who did know what they were doing and to try to help us bring it together. But like we blew through that money getting that cloud kitchen open, like in two seconds. And if we didn't get the opportunity to do that space, there would be no Giada. Like we talk about the year of 2020 is the year of a brand investment is what we call the financial outcome because there was no money made in that cloud kitchen. We also think the economics of cloud kitchens are just not good. But the brand was built that year and that was what afforded us the opportunity to even get to Melrose Hill. But yeah, that cloud kitchen, we saw some stuff. We saw a samurai sword fight break out in front of that store. Wow. And they were real samurai swords. That was an interesting summer. The thing that's funny, when I think about like real estate development. So we were talking about like when I first got into it, there's something beautiful about not knowing the hill or the mountain you're climbing. There's something really nice, you know? And then when you go to do it again, you're like, oh, fuck, because now you know. But if someone told you what you were in for, you would probably not do it. Correct. You know? Or if you believe them anyway. Yeah. We all had normal jobs. Like, you know, I don't think we would have had like the most exciting lives had we kept on our track, but we would have been okay. And if they had said like, yo, you're gonna open this restaurant and like all of this crazy ass shit is gonna happen, we would have probably looked at each other and been like, you good? Cause I'm good. You know, we don't need this. The only thing that made it work without like being corny is the fact that like we did it together. Like I have so much respect for people who open businesses by themselves because we at the end of the day, when it was like this is going horribly, at least you're like, fuck it, we're in it together. We're in it together. Let's do it. You got three brains. No, the dark shit that would happen, I'd be like, oh, at least we know Max. And when did you guys open the one over here in West Hollywood on Santa Monica? November 2022. Okay. So we signed for it in October of 2021. That was our first experience of like hitting all the bad permitting blocks. So it took us 13 months to get that store open from signing, but that was November. And was there a kitchen in there before? Yeah. It was a second generation space. That was the original Urrs Burgers. Okay. But it had been sitting vacant as a restaurant for like a ridiculously long time. So we basically had to like gut it and start completely new. So also the first time us learning how to do construction in a real way. So like West Hollywood was another big learning curve for us, which is interesting, but it ended up being great. It's funny. When I was doing development, I got a call from like a reporter and they were like, hey, so like what's it like doing construction in West Hollywood? We hear it's like really beautiful and very developer friendly. And I'm like, I'm doing two projects right now. One in LA city, one in West Hollywood. West Hollywood is four square miles. LA city is much larger. My project in LA will be open six months before the project in West Hollywood. And they're like, no. And like they wouldn't write about it. Yeah. But they should. And I was like, that's, I could share that. And I was like, and I know the mayor and I know all the people here in West Hollywood. I know everyone. The stigma is that that West Hollywood is the most business friendly locale within LA. And there are, to their credit, they have done some things to make it a little bit easier to operate a restaurant. We got our beer and wine license in six months over the counter. And that was, I think, talking to some other restaurants where it was relatively low, left pretty condensed timeline. But in terms of construction and permitting everything else, it was a total disaster here. And even like after the fact, we had to get, we had to double up on building fire and health inspections for our business. Like they already came, the same guys had to come back but do it for West Hollywood, which I thought was, was harmless but funny. It was like, why are they coming back? And how's business now? So you guys have been open for almost a year. Yeah, it's been, it's been excellent. Yeah. It's been excellent here. We, you know, they say, especially in restaurants, like some egregious percentage fail within the first year. But after you make it past that first year, your odds of success in having some staying power of, you know, five, six, seven years a decade goes way, way up. We're about to hit our one year mark in West Hollywood next month. And the business is the healthiest that it's ever been. When you hear that, when people say like restaurants fail and obviously you see it all the time, what have you learned about why they fail? I think there's a myriad different reasons and a lot of it is situational. But I think like we are very lucky to have, most restaurants don't have like a management consultant, you know, Finance Wizard who can figure out how many loaves of bread you're gonna sell in 2080 and how many, and quickly pull up like how many chicken cutlets you sold three years ago. So I think having Jack on the team is definitely a secret weapon that a lot of restaurants don't have. And I think having like a genius creative mind and marketing mind in Max and our other partner, Maddie, like, you know, we've just built a pretty incredible team to make this thing go that like, you know, most mom and pop operators while they may have that experience in the kitchen and they may have like some amazing culinary chops, they don't have like that kind of like consumer, customer facing mindset and skill set. And I think that has separated us. At a high level, when I talk to people in sort of the restaurant game, the thing I've noticed and I think this happened during COVID when a lot of people decided to quit, it's like the game had changed in a real way. And so before people just thought, oh, I opened my door, I have a good food product, people will come and that's all they need. And this happened in the movie industry. So with movies, it's like, no one, why does no one go to the movies anymore? It's like this thing everyone's trying to figure out. And the answer is there's something beautiful about people will say like, on Instagram, it's a 10 and in real life, it's a six, right? So this is like online dating. But to some extent, it's like, if I take a photo of your shop, I'm eating at your shop and I post it on my gram, it produces this like FOMO for other people being like, oh, I want that. Or like, oh, I'm hungry. Maybe I should go check this place out. So Instagram at 10 and in real life, it might be different, doesn't matter, right? The movies don't have that. The movies, no one's going to the movies posting it on Instagram. And so there's this like fourth element that is brand new that a lot of restaurant tours, when I speak to them about when they quit or in COVID or a little bit after, they're like, the game has changed and I'm tired and I don't want to learn. And that's okay, business changed. But it's like the people who get that, the people who get this like fourth new dimension of business are in such position to win. And obviously you guys are in terms of brand, you have that. But it's like, it's an interesting new strategy that is not an accident. And I think if people double down on that, you'll be here longterm for sure. To, I mean, look to some of those kind of shifting business trends or business principles, especially in the restaurant industry, while it is obviously devastating when a family run restaurant, it's been around for 40, 50 years, goes out of business, the truth is so many of those spaces then provide opportunity for three young guys or three young gals or three young, you know, restaurant tours to come in and try something new and try something different. And I think you need a little bit of that churn in any industry or else you get the same legacy players and there's just no room for any new entrepreneur to enter. And I think like we were probably the best example of that had the pandemic not kind of ripped some things out of place, wouldn't have been able to find a lease that gave us some favorable terms, wouldn't have been able to do a month to month lease on a cloud kitchen with essentially no money down. And I think the barriers to entry just came way, way down at the start of the pandemic. And that's really what allowed us to at least get our product tomorrow. Before we get into what's next for the brand, how does fashion play into what you guys are doing? I think for us, we always try to like have those little Easter eggs and have different ways for you to engage in a brand and be able to have like different groups from different areas. So like for us, we've had a lot of fun from the beginning like collaborating with different brands and finding ways to like bring communities together. So like the first one we did was bricks and woods, which is like a South Central based street wear brand. And Casey has become like family to us now. We love him dearly, but like that was our first intro into like, let's put a shirt and a hat together and put a sandwich on the menu together and bring people who love food and clothing and all of that together. And that kind of like really had a light bulb go off for us and be like, wow, if we can get people to not only come in here and buy a shirt that they're going to be excited to wear around, but also like want to eat our sandwiches and continue buying our hats and come to our events that like it would be just like a huge thing. And for us, I mean, now we've done collabs with bricks and woods, Leropa, we did New York sunshine. We just did Dickies with Interscope this last week. Like we've gotten lucky, no maintenance to do a lot of really fun collaborations in fashion to kind of like also put us in that world when you think of like sandwiches and clothes. And it's just like, it's a cool way to kind of play in between both. Yeah, I love that. We've used fashion really to put our logo next to a bunch of amazing other logos, you know, in the form of collaborations. And I think like when, you know, this whole sort of like taste maker culture that really has been fueled by social media, we now look to the entrepreneurs or creatives that we know and love and follow. And if they validate another brand or another business or another category by putting their logo next to theirs, I'm automatically more enticed to go and try that product, even if it's somebody who's a fashion designer, you know, co-signing or validating a restaurant, that person, that person might have no, you know, culinary background or no real reason for like being a taste maker in the food space, but I'm intrinsically more interested in what that restaurant is doing now. And that's really what we've used the kind of merch component to do. And it's fun to do. It's so fun. Yeah, I love it. We just enjoy getting to be creative and being like, for us now we're getting into this world where like, when you think of deli wear, you think of a shirt or you think of a hat, and that's kind of as far as it goes. But we're like, how can we push that and get you excited to buy a chore coat or get you excited to buy a, you know, a knife or some type of accessory and like what kind of cool quirky shit can we come up with and convince a consumer to buy that they would usually maybe buy from like a designer that they wouldn't buy from like a deli but convince them to actually do it. And that for us is like kind of the fun part of all the merch. I think like the big kind of trend we've been, you know, very aware of is like fashion and food have become like very symbiotic. It feels like in the last five or 10 years, like you think about like, A, just the way even like restaurants are treating the items on the menu with like these drops that feel very analogous to what sneaker brands were doing when we all grew up and kind of grew up loving. Like that's been something that like we wanted to do but now it feels like everyone's doing, everybody's starting to drop a new collaborative menu item with either another brand or a personality, whatever it may be. And I also just think like the interest in food particularly from fashion feels very, very heightened. Like you think about like we always, we love Paperboy Paris, like getting a Reebok shoe. Like we saw them early on in our journey. We're like, oh my God, we want a Reebok shoe. And so like it's just become like, I feel like this kind of conjoining of communities that 10, 15 years ago maybe didn't exist but now feels very front and center and it feels like what you should be doing as a good restaurant brand. Yeah. So I mentioned that the sports were the pawn shop and so I made hats. So usually I'll make hats during a project to give to like our investors or people who support it, give us letters of support, whatever. And people were like, where can I buy one? And it shocked me because like I'm not, my brain was like, I give these out for free. Why would I want to sell them? But people were like, no, this hat's dope. Like how can I support? How can I buy one? And so we're gonna order like a thousand more but it was shocking to me that people would do that. It was just really interesting. It was cool. There's another deli in Los Angeles called Uncle Pauly's and like their hats, it's unbelievable. Everyone from like Travis Scott to Olivia Rodrigo and all of that. And for a lot of people I would say probably the hat, you would think of the hat before you think of necessarily the sandwiches. So true. Which goes to show you like how huge that crossover can be. Like he's done a crazy, he's done such a good job but you go to like a Dover Street market in downtown LA and there's like Uncle Pauly's merch there. It's unbelievable. It shows you like that crossover is crazy. Also like they were definitely the OGs of that like restaurant street wear crossover. And it's become like, you know, that's one of the most iconic pieces of merch at least in like the restaurant world is that hat that they did. Also, I mean, I think a lot of this is like the internet and social media but like even just like the brand following on restaurants now is so, like it feels like the most exciting brands that we talk about like just as consumers are usually like restaurants now. Like I feel like that's what's getting a lot of people going. Like there's just so much interest in like, like you think about like courage bagels. Like they have one store and so we're like, they have like almost a hundred thousand dollars with this one store. And it's like so incredible to see what type of interest a brand now from a restaurant can do. What's next for you guys? More locations or what are you guys at right now? Yeah, I mean, you know, I think Noah kind of gave the initial like story why we started Giada, which is really a problem. We felt like existed in LA lack of the Italian deli. And as we've gone through this journey, we're definitely now looking out at the nation and seeing Subway. The nation getting bought for $10 billion. And like maybe there's a bigger opportunity but you know, I think for us, we feel really good about the fact we were able to get three stores open in a pretty large city. And we think there's definitely some room to get a few more. And so we're looking at it. We're looking at a fourth store, hopefully for next year. And you know, I think we're excited about, you know, the possibility of scaling this out. But I think right now we feel very focused on like making sure all the screws are tightened. Like we want our team to be, you know, in a good, you know, at the end of the day, Giada is as good as the team that we have. And we're so excited by all the people that have been with us for two or three years stepping up into leadership roles and kind of like, you know, taking over a restaurant. And like this is now the one they oversee. So I think that's what we're thinking through a lot right now. But for sure, more stores are on the way. And I think we're, you know, just kind of taking it one by one right now. And I need to know, what are your favorite sandwiches? Like what's, do you guys have your own little, like what's your babies? Max is the only vegetarian Italian deli owner probably in the world, I would imagine. I think that's probably Max's vegetarian. 95% of the menu, he hasn't made it through. I'm a trust exercise. Is that the eggplant one that you, what's, yeah. So like the lory is named after my mom. It's a eggplant sandwich. So I eat all the veggie sandwiches. But for the most part, like now that we have breakfast, I eat a ton of breakfast sandwiches. Like a naked cheese on a bagel. When did you guys start breakfast? We did that in April. About six months ago. Okay, so you're open. What time do you open over here? So 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. now. Okay. And the breakfast is such an unlock for us. So I'm gonna bring you some breakfast to have. Because I promise you the breakfast, in my opinion, is like some of the best stuff on the menu. Okay. The lory is your favorite. Yeah. I gotta go breakfast and lunch. My favorite breakfast sandwich is the Breakfast Club. It's like turkey, fried egg, avocado, flavoring chili, all that everything bagel. Unbelievable. Wow. Sandwich I'm eating. Probably all-time favorite is the draper. The draper. The chicken cutlet, prosciutto, stracciatella. Okay. Mulsomically, shredded lettuce. Yeah. Really good stuff. Yeah, I've been, I'm a classic Italian guy. For the most part, like. Yes, you are. But it goes in ways, you know what I mean? It goes in waves, like there's been stretches where I've eaten 30 drapers and then I put on 10 pounds and my girl's like, yo, it's time to go migrate to the Caesar salad, so I'll go do a salad for a little while. That's real though. That is real. That's where you find him the most. You'll see him in the kitchen just dogging something. Yes, exactly. If the salads though are covered in chicken cutlet, so it just is sandwiched out the bread. That's really, that's your MO, that's your MO. But nah, these days, classic time. We also, we just did a new sandwich at the Venice location, which is a chicken cutlet, melted Swiss, avocado, Russian dressing, and hot cherry pepper. That one, when I'm feeling indulgent, that's the one. That Russian dressing was like a nod to our favorite deli that we grew up going through the way and out of business during COVID. We have a little painting of them in the store. It's called the Wachung deli. It was like this legendary spot and their best sandwiches all had Russian dressing. What's that called? What's it called? Oh, it's the Giselle. The Giselle? Yeah. The Giselle. I like it. Well listen, thanks for coming on the pod, guys. Where can people follow you? Where can they go visit? Venice, West Hollywood, what's the Instagram? Yeah, we're at Giada, 2G's, G-G-I-A-T-A, Giada.com as well. You can find our first location on the corner of Melrose and Western and Melrose Hill, our second location in West Hollywood, right on Santa Monica and Laurel, and then our most recent opening, which was in August, is on the corner of Windward and Pacific in Venice, right under the Venice sign. Love it. Thanks, guys. Yeah, thank you, man. Appreciate it. Thank you so much for the support and making it to the end of the episode. If you haven't already, please leave a review and share the episode with your friends. If you never want to miss a beat on all things entrepreneurship, make sure to follow us on socials or daily content. See you next Tuesday for another great episode.