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

Alright, Vincenzo thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

When it was Finally my time to open a restaurant, I’m italian, so I opened an Italian restaurant! A regional restaurant from Sardinia, to be exact. I did a lot of research here in LA and we have so many Italian restaurants. most of the dishes are so similar to one another. This is why I decided to open a Sardinia restaurant. We are still Italian, but with different dishes that other restaurants don’t have. I just decided to bring something new to the table.
I knew it would work because not many people know about Sardinia. It was the perfect excuse to allow people to try new dishes from Italy and also exposing Sardinia to new people.
I’m very proud of where I come from . My wine list has only Sardinia wines and the menu is split between Italian and Sardinia dishes.

Vincenzo, 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?

My name is Vincenzo Porcu as my grandfather, Vincenzo Porcu, who owned two restaurants in Sardinia. I come from Sinnai, a small town in the mountains of Cagliari. I’ve been working in the restaurant business since I was 14.

The idea of visiting America first came to me when I was 22. Initially, I came to New York. Since then, I have been back and forth to NY many times until I decided to stay in LA, where I was able to have many work experiences. It was during a vacation in 2005 to Los Angeles, that ultimately persuaded me to make this my new home. I love Los Angeles and, in some ways, it reminds me of Sardinia. I decided to open my Carasau Sardinian Restaurant in Culver City.

How’d you meet your business partner?

Antonio Pellini was the person that give me the opportunity to open my Sardinia restaurant
We met in Culver’s city through a friend that we have in common named Anna Manunza.
Antonio had the restaurant, but not too much energy to run the restaurant. So after few meetings, we decided to be partners: He will create the restaurant and I will bring the concept.

Has your business ever had a near-death moment? Would you mind sharing the story?

I learned a good lesson!!
One time I had to change my credit car merchant account and by mistake, Some other company used my TIN number (typo). That typo cost me to loose almost $70,000.
The TIN number was from a person that owed money to the IRS. They took the 70k from my bank account a few days before my payroll. Unfortunately, my money was gone from the account and I had to ask money from friends and borrow money from my savings to pay my employees. After 2 years, I still have not been able to get the money back.
So please pay attention when filling paper work.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://carasauristorante.com/culver-city-culver-city-carasau-about
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carasauristorante?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carasauristoranteLA?mibextid=wwXIfr
• Yelp: https://yelp.to/PeL7REhJmn

Image Credits

All my Vincenzo Porcu