Pizza Pleasers
Who says family and work can't co-exist?
Goodfella's is the name and family is the game.
Since 1993, brothers Scot and Marc Cosentino and brother-in-law E.
Jay Myers (37, 38 and 36, respectively) have been serving up
gourmet pizzas to New Yorkers with Goodfella's Brick Oven
Pizza. With no background in food service, $75,000 among the three
of them and a love for food and family, Scot, Marc and Myers set
out to create a business that would put them on the map. They
opened their first restaurant on Staten Island in January 1993 with
competition from five other pizzerias within 10 blocks. With no air
conditioning, a refrigerator from their house and a teeny mixer,
they cleaned their windows and typed up a menu.
"In the beginning, we went to food distributors and said,
'Give us the best of everything,'" Scot remembers.
"And that's how we put together the taste—not by any
recipe, not by any standards. We just started throwing things
together."
The three men made a pact that, no matter what happened, they
weren't going to let anyone else determine their course.
"We knew we wanted to be in control of our own destiny,"
Myers says.
Content Continues Below
Within seven months of starting, Goodfella's Pizza was voted
the best pizza in the country at a national pizza contest in
Manhattan and subsequently given national TV exposure. With a full
house every night, they opened a second location in Brooklyn, New
York, in 1994. In 1998, they formed their Goodfella's franchise
under the name Globe Restaurant Group Inc. With sales figures of
$2.8 million for 1999, Myers predicts close to $5 million this year
with the opening of five more stores.
"We work 190 hours a week," says Myers. "We love
it."
"For us," adds Scot, "it's franchise by day,
restaurant by night."