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

Hi Tony , thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with what makes profitability in your industry a challenge – what would you say is the biggest challenge?

This is a huge topic today for all of us in the industry. The rise of costs and labor are killing the restaurant business as well as other industries. We can only charge so much before people stop coming in at all. Some of the things we did to relieve some of the overhead was pass it on to the guests. -Merchant fees, we pay 4-5k per moth per location just to swipe a credit card so we added a 3% fee to all guests that use a credit card and it has helped so much in keeping cash flow consistent and profits a bit better. It also to the guest is only a couple cents rather then a couple thousand for us and or the business owner!
-Togo fee, all togo stuff has tripled in the last 2 years and we cannot effort to take the hit, so when the guest orders togo there is a togo fee that helps supplement our cost of goods.
-ordering in bulk and by the pallet to help lower costs, we have been doing this for the last year especially with stuff we always go through. Instead of getting 2 cases we get 2 pallets! It has saves us a ton however you need the space to store it all.

Tony , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am successful chef, restauranteur, and lifestyle personality. I was inspired to become a chef during my first kitchen job at age 13, washing dishes and making fresh pasta after high school. I later graduated from culinary school at Johnson and Wales University in Miami, and worked at a variety of notable Miami restaurants before traveling to Europe to learn about old world technique and culinary traditions. I received a James Beard and Jean Louis Palladin Foundation grant to travel to Thailand and eventually the west coast to study holistic farming, cooking, and agriculture. Today I am back in my hometown of Cincinnati where I co own Mom ’n ‘em Coffee. I oversee all operations for the Ferrari Bros Brand, including financials, real estate, consultation, travel, and hospitality.

What sets us apart from everyone else is us we are always involved in all growth, transactions, events, staff, and decisions at the end of the day. We try our best to create a fun work environment and keep the staff involved. We offer PTO and 401K as a small business we haven’t seen a lot that do that. We are invested in staff growth and creating opportunities for them and their dreams. We are a very unique brand and bothers who work well together!

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

Currently we are working on our product line to get into stores and scale, We do this in-house right now and sell it in our stores however want to partner with co packers to scale and get into more location with distribution! It is extremely difficult and expensive to start up. We have found a co packer in Michigan to help us start our canned cold brew coffee project. They will do all the packaging and filling for us.
We are working with a branding company for logo, labels, colors, and putting together the story for it to launch it here soon. We have learned a lot about minimums, wholesale logistics, USDA, different recipes, and the time invested to bring it all together. Took us a couple companies but finally found one that could work with our minimums and shelf life which is important to us.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

This one is pretty easy its my brother! We are best friends and 2 peas in a pod. He does all the FOH, beverage, social media/marketing. I control BOH, food, finances, partnerships, and property. Together we tackle right through it. We divide and conquer. We always worked well together, its not always perfect but at the end of the day we trust each other and have eachtohers backs always. We are known as the ferrari bros.

Growing up we both had the same vision for business, feel, hospitality and the way we wanted to present ourselves. We have high standards and can be hard to work with at times if things don’t go the way we intended!   

Contact Info: 

• Website: https://theferraribros.com/pages/about
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/momnemcoffee/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tony.ferrari.568/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-ferrari-9136b7205/
• Twitter: @volkswagenboy
• Other: @bossmanferrari IG