It was 2001 when right after my coming of age, from a small town in the south of Italy, I decided to move and study Business Administration in Bologna, a city that for us – young people born in the South – represented the mecca for emancipation.

Bologna was anarchic, lively, “red” – a communist constituency – “fat” – a gourmet city – the city of the Bolognese sauce, but also the city where my father, when I was a young boy, after a doctor’s appointment and while waiting for the train that would take us home, gave me a wonderful treat (or at least it was, in those times,): he took me to eat hamburgers and fries at McDonald’s.

I was delighted because it was something I could brag about to my friends.
Later, when I went back a bit more aware to Bologna as a university student I realized that there were many other things to talk about.
As a matter of fact, Bologna, the city to which one of my most vivid and beautiful memories as a child was tied, became the city of amazement.
Although the range available in those days wasn’t comparable to the current eno-gastronomic offer, with eyes of a young man, I i understood there was a much wider range of food I could choose from.

The lasagna in the local trattoria, tortellini from the sfogline, pumpkin gnocchi, even kebabs – decisively unfamiliar prior to my life in Bologna. There were also piadina –  even though only a few good ‘piadinari’ who would make them – tigelle and crescentine.
When we could, we would “choose” to go and eat the typical food fare, the healthy street food – the one that you would talk about over the phone the next day: “Mom, when you come over, I’ll take you to eat crescentine. They look a bit like our pupi (discs of fried dough typical of my town in Puglia)”.

Thinking back today, observing how the relationship between the food-and-wine offer and the new generations is changing, I realize the beauty of it all, which was to be able to have the choice to eat something that made us feel good and that we could talk about.

As many more food options became available – and for the last twenty years – a righteous and sometimes vicious mechanism started to animate the eno-gastronomic sector, propelling it toward an almost obsessive research and a continuous proposal/proposition of new formats.. These were formats, that rooted in the tradition, made accessible to a new generations of us kids – of the pre-Steve Jobs and Iphone1 era – something that used to be sporadic, occasional, something exceptional.
So exceptional that we could not wait to talk about it with our mum over the phone.

Our journey began right when we realized that our idea of cooking, together with to some of the most characteristic products of the Apulian gastronomic tradition like focaccia and bread, could merge into an interest concept, thanks to the extraordinary raw materials available in our hometown.
So, in November 2015, after leaving our corporate careers, my wife and I became food entrepreneurs.

The pre-opening doubts, to people like us who had no experience in the world of catering, have been replaced by certainties only when we realized that among the customers who approached our business, young people – who are the most difficult to conquer in the long run because they are more inclined to follow the trends – became, in time, our driving target.

Families often came to our place upon recommendation of their children, who had discovered our shops after school.
We realized that today’s kids can choose and know how to choose.

Today’s youngsters are well informed. They choose to eat well and to spend the right amount of money to feel good. They are curious. They travel, they taste, they trust the business owners and rely on them when it’s about novelties.
They try to understand the differences and listen to the ones who make them, falling in love with their stories.

Not only. The relationship between young people and the restaurant industry has now developed beyond food. This is the real revolution that has been taking place in recent years.

For this type of customers, issues such as environmental sustainability, transparency and work ethics represent added values that guide their choices.

We have therefore focused our attention on recycled materials, composable tableware, on a selection of products linked to the Slow Food movement, and on strengthening the relationship with the small local suppliers.

These are all aspects that in the eyes of the young generation have made of our stores the “strongholds of kindness”, a definition that is one of the points of the manifesto of a movement that we endorse, the Urban Agricultural Bakers, which considers as fundamental the role of people who, every day, take care of their patrons: stores and laboratories – like ours – with welcoming areas and an environment accessible and open to intangible exchange.

Being restaurateurs today means taking part in this revolution and create opportunities of choice for our clients, especially for the younger ones who live in a parallel dimension in rapid evolution: that one of the social networks.

In order to be their first choice, we must be credible, and this is the real challenge. Defining ourselves artisans is not enough.