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

Ricky, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

I had a James Beard Foundation Member Restaurant in Chicago and me and my team were sitting around one day talking about a food truck so I bought one. A couple weeks later it was ready so we took it out and were slammed and got crushed. I thought of selling the next day. Instead we regrouped figured out a plan and treated it like any line in a restaurant and went out again and it was an instant success. I then turned it into a brick and mortar in Chicago and then here we are now in SCOTTSDALE with plans of at least 4 more.

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?

I have owned and operated over 26 Restaurants concepts. I used to flip them like people flip houses. I brand them create the menu get the buzz and then sell them. That stopped about 10 years ago and I focused on two main concepts I had with Culinary Gangster being a collection of all of them from the past.

Let’s move on to buying businesses – can you talk to us about your experience with business acquisitions?

Yes I bought a previous restaurant because I wanted the location so I purchased it and then completely gutted it and came up with an entire new concept. I do not usually like to take existing restaurant locations that went out of business. I know it was probably due to lack of finance and quality of food but once a spot fails it’s also a risk it was the location.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I don’t over price anything since covid food cost has went thru the roof however you cannot always pass that inflation onto your customers. Even tho the big companies like Sysco are raising everything on us we still need to think of what we our selling. When eggs got to $10 a dozen we cant start charging $20 for an omelet .

Contact Info:

• Website: www.culinarygangsteraz.com
• Instagram: culinarygangsteraz
• Yelp: Culinary Gangster Scottsdale

Image Credits
Karrie Raschillo