We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Aaron Gross a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Aaron, appreciate you joining us today. Looking back, what’s an important lesson you learned at a prior job?
Stellar food and beverage programs are vital, but hospitality is the key and Customers are number 1, take time talk to your guests and when the opportunity arises get to know them personally, it really makes a difference. Taking the time makes a first time guest feel like a regular, but it also puts everyone on the same level. Word of mouth is very important, when guests feel special they tell their friends and want to show off “their” place. It’s the best kind of advertising and it does not cost a thing except a little time and a kind gesture. When you take the time to care for others they do the same for you, as restaurant people we are just like everyone else some days are not our best, but when it happens it can affect 1 to many more people. Having an open line of communication with your guests allows for a back and forth and if there is ever a problem, they have the confidence to discuss and help you correct any possible errors.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My wife Wende and I had both been in the restaurant industry for 25 plus each, but were never owners. We have worked at some of Dallas’ top restaurants including but not limited to MoMo Italian Kitchen (Wende got her start in the business at MoMo in the late 1980’s) York Street, Lola The Restaurant, opening staff of Mot Hai Ba ran the front of the house and assisted in the transition of change in ownership to Chef Peja, Zizikis, Central 214, The Green Room, ShiSei and more. We have spent our lives gaining knowledge of the food and beverage industry and the products we serve (it is a life long task and you are always learning) all will honing our craft of hospitality. We knew that we would eventually be proprietors of a restaurant at some point. In 2016 we were actually in the process of trying to open our own restaurant, when we took over MoMo Italian Kitchen in 2017. MoMo was one of our favorite restaurants, and we felt MoMo was a Dallas institution (the first Dallas Italian restaurant to focus on Northern Italian Cuisine, food from the Northern regions of Italy, such as Piedmont, Emilia-Romagna and Lombardy to name a few) and we did not what to see it close. So we worked with the family and we took over MoMo in June of 2017. When we took over we made few changes as to not upset the long time regulars. One of the first things we did was add Italian focused wine list, and we have built up that wine list quite nicely over the years and have some of the great independently owned wineries from Italy represented as the majority of our list. At first we were only beer and wine and we created a list creative low abv cocktails and started one of Dallas’ first Apertivo Hours (Happy Hour) in 2018 before it was the trend it is now. We added a liquor license in 2022 and have crafted a nice list of Italian inspired house cocktails, and for me I’m a beer nerd as well and love Saisons so we have a nice collection of those and even do Saison Sundays to try to introduce others to Saisons. We feel we have taken a restaurant opened in 1986 and brought it to 2024
Let’s talk M&A – we’d love to hear your about your experience with buying businesses.
We bought MoMo Italian Kitchen from the original Italian owners the Gattini family. MoMo was established in 1986 and run by the same family until we took over in 2017. When MoMo opened it was unlike anything in Dallas at the time and garnered tons of attentions with lines out the door with some of Dallas’ biggest names waiting in those lines. Antonio the father and founder retired in the late 1990’s and the sons Darwin Carlo & Matteo took over the day to day operations. After years of operating the family restaurant, the sons both had aspirations of their own. Matteo is back in Italy and Darwin Carlo is the owner and operator of Botolino Gelato. When he decided to move to the gelato business he knew he could not continue to operate MoMo and a new start up business, and had decided to close MoMo. That is where we came in, ourselves and Carlo had the same property broker and we were both struggling getting a lease (us to our own restaurant and him for his first location) Wende was back working at MoMo in the meantime. When Carlo secured his lease, it was time to move on, and one evening he talked to Wende about us taking over MoMo. We jumped at the chance as we felt and still feel MoMo is a gem and a landmark in dining in Dallas. After that is was down to paperwork and the bank and we took over June 1st 2017.
Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?
We have actually secured 3 separate loans and 1 investor for funding and are actually in the process of trying to obtain investors/loan for a new venture. We first built a investor document and a deck (a visual and text description of our project) for potential funders to view. We then shopped the deck to potential investors and loan officers. For our initial offering we had 3 investors lined up with a bank finishing of the total. When we were unable to open our own restaurant and the opportunity to purchase MoMo became a reality, we had to change the focus of the investment/loan. We were lucky that one of the investors followed us through the change in direction and our loan officer readjusted the loan to get the deal done. We then used the same loan officer to secure funds for an expansion of MoMo.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://momoitaliankitchen.com
- Instagram: @momoitaliankitchen
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MoMoItalianKitchen/
- Twitter: @MomoItalian
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/momo-italian-kitchen-dallas-2
Image Credits
Emily Loving