We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Mari Rubio. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Mari below.

Mari , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

I think the story behind Casa Gioia’s name is pretty awesome.

When I lived in Italy back in 2010, I worked back of the house at this boutique hotel located in the Southern part of the country. We were a small team of 7, and only 2 of us were females.

Since most of us lived at the hotel, we would all share breakfast, lunch and dinner together before service. One day, a new middle-aged man named Nando (short for Fernando) started working front of the house and he quickly integrated the group.

As days went by, we got to know each other and we would occasionally sit with the same group during lunch time. Out of the blues one morning (and every morning after that) he greeted me with a loud and cheerful: “Bongiorno, bella gioia!” with a big smile on his face. And although I had learned Italian pretty well, and spoke it fluently, I had never come across that particular word: “gioia”.

I was embarrassed to ask, and so I left it like that. At one point, I even thought he was making fun of me.

Time passed, and he kept calling me “bella gioia” for whatever short time he worked at the hotel, and I kept smiling politely hoping for the best.

My time in Italy came to an end, and I came back to the States. Many, many, many months after my return, thanks to a random act of the Universe, the word “gioia” came back to my life somehow. And this time I wasn’t embarrassed to ask. It turns out the word means “joy”, and so Nando was calling me every morning a “beautiful joy”.

I immediately fell in love with the word, with the writing- everything. I knew I needed to have that name in my life forever.

When I started this business, I wanted its name to have ‘gioia’ in it. Since we started baking from home, “Casa Gioia” felt right as it literally translates to “house of joy” . As we all know, desserts bring joy to people and so I never felt more confident that a name fitted so well.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Casa Gioia literally translates to ‘house of joy’ in Italian and we are a “bake to order” business we specialize in desserts and all orders must be pre-ordered either via phone, or through our online ordering system on our website.

Long story short, Casa Gioia is the byproduct of many situations that were going on at the time of it’s birth- back in 2013 – that started as something to help me keep busy while defining what is it that I wanted out of life.

I graduated in 2012 from Johnson & Wales University in North Miami, FL, with an AS in Culinary Arts, BS in Food Service Management and a concentration in Events & Sales Management. Since I was a little kid I knew I wanted to be a chef but never a pastry chef. I didn’t care much- if not at all- about pastry because of its science and precision (patience is not one of my strongest virtues).

But, certainly life had other plans for me. While I was going through a post-college graduate crisis figuring out if Culinary was my thing or if I should focus on Event & Sales, I was looking for work but wasn’t able to find any. I wasn’t qualified enough – or I was looking at the wrong places, who knows?

While my work search was unfruitful, I started baking goodies at home and they came out quite nicely. I needed a source of income since I was cut off financially, so it seemed like a good idea to sell them until I found something more stable. It was never my intention to become a business owner. But, one thing let to another, I started falling for baking, people started falling for my things, and Casa Gioia was born.

Fast forward 8 years later, here we are today, sharing gioia with everyone that wants it, anywhere in the States.

I am most proud of how far we’ve come and how resilient we’ve been. How much we’ve grown given our circumstances and given that this business is purely the result of hard work, dedication and faith. We’re also proud of the name we’ve established for ourselves in this city and the amazing relationships we’ve built along the way.

What I think that sets us apart from others is the flavor of nostalgia that accompanies our desserts. It is almost an immediate reaction in people’s faces when they try something of ours and say “oy, this reminds me of such and such my grandma used to make back home”, or “this tastes just like my childhood”, and right then and there I am happy.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

When we started we didn’t have much of a budget for marketing and so I had to get creative with what little we had.

I can definitely say for a fact that for the longest time the best source of new clients were referrals or word of mouth.

Someone that tried our products at their friend friend’s house said they loved such and such and they need it ASAP. And as we all know, the slowest and oldest marketing strategy is word of mouth but I believe it’s the most powerful. It usually comes from someone that has had that experience/product and they’re sharing their experience with you.

As time went by and technology evolved, I can definitely say Instagram more than anything has become my ally. Features such as reels have helped me connect with the clients and reach new ones in a fun and interactive way.

Also, Google. We’ve been blessed enough to have been featured many times throughout the years and so we have a nice presence on Google that has grown organically.

How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?

I do this thing of following up with the client a few days after their purchase. I believe it is important to be in touch with them after the product has been delivered as it makes them feel important and that their opinions matter. If not, they could feel like they’re a money machine and they’re only valuable when they spend. This is a little something I started doing as we began to reach new markets that has created a huge impact, and I believe brought more value to our brand.

With time I noticed that 95% of the people finish their feedback with a “thank you so much Mari for your message and following up. We will definitely be back”. Of course they will be back because of the quality of the product we’re serving, but they’re also coming back because of the customer service and the feeling that they are valued.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.casagioiamiami.com
• Instagram: @casagioiaus
• Facebook: casagioiaus
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChB914sweonGmYlD-QWRaHQ
• Yelp: Casa Gioia