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From Toddler Chef to Restaurateur: My Journey to Opening a Pizza & Pasta Restaurant
Opening a restaurant is like falling in love:
It’s irrational, exhilarating, exhausting and somehow entirely worth it when done for the right reasons.
My journey to launching Panzano’s, my scratch-made pizza and pasta restaurant, wasn’t sketched out on a napkin overnight; it was rooted in years of culinary exploration, in my kitchen, in the classroom and in the hills of Italy.
Just a Kid With a Wooden Spoon
Like so many other chefs, my career began as a kid standing on a chair to reach the stove. I was barely 3 when I started cooking dinners with my mum and dad. I started with simple things — scrambled eggs (maybe with some shell) and flapjack cookies — but I remember the spark it lit inside me. Seeing the delight on my family’s faces when I put a plate in front of them felt like magic. It wasn’t just about the food; it was about connection, about taking care of people.
After college, I spent five years in marketing, learning the ins and outs of branding and customer psychology. But that itch to create with my hands, to feed people, never left me. One day, I took a leap and enrolled in culinary school in Ireland.
That’s where everything really clicked. Surrounded by rolling green pastures and some of the most passionate chefs and artisans I’d ever met, I rediscovered that childhood joy but with a deeper purpose – and much sharper knives.
But it wasn’t until I studied in Tuscany that I truly understood what “from scratch” could mean. Working under a local chef in a tiny hilltop village, I learned how to hand-roll thick pici pasta, how to coax flavor from San Marzano tomatoes with only olive oil and sea salt, and how to respect the slow, deliberate pace of Italian cooking. I knew immediately that I wanted to bring this soulful simplicity back home.
A Restaurant of My Own: Turning Passion Into a Business
When I returned home, I knew I wanted to open a scratch-made pizza and pasta restaurant. And in short order, I was doing just that: rolling fresh pasta every morning, making dough balls for hours and crafting everything from sauces to stocks in-house. The restaurant became an extension of everything I believed about food: how every ingredient matters, every step tells a story and real hospitality has a taste.
My Make-or-Break Ingredient: The Mozzarella Blend
Any pizzaiolo worth their salt knows that cheese is the crown jewel of any pizza. I invested months in blind tastings and supplier meetings to find the perfect mozzarella blend. I wanted the rich creaminess of fior di latte but also the elasticity and browning you get from a high-quality low-moisture mozzarella. My final blend was a closely guarded ratio of both, combined with a touch of aged provolone for added depth and umami.
When done well, that cheese blend isn’t just an ingredient — it’s a signature. Ours caramelized just right, gave diners that iconic cheese pull, and balanced perfectly with our scratch tomato sauce and dough.
But passion alone never outweighs the hard realities of independent ownership. One of the toughest challenges we faced was the growing consumer expectation for discounts. The big chains, with their economies of scale and couponing, made competing on price all but impossible for independent operators, particularly ones like us who insisted on premium ’00 flour, DOP-certified San Marzano tomatoes and hand-crafting every element.
We didn’t cut corners, but communicating that value to guests, especially in a saturated market, was a constant struggle. Our margins got tighter, my late nights got longer.
The Hard Decision: Closing the Doors
After nearly two rewarding yet exhausting years, I made the difficult decision to close my restaurant. It wasn’t a failure; it was a commencement. I had achieved what I set out to do — creating something authentic, honing my craft and building unforgettable experiences for our guests – but it was time for a new chapter.
Today, I’ve returned to the world of foodservice marketing, but now with a completely different lens. I don’t just understand brand strategy and trends — I’ve lived the operator’s life. I’ve felt the early morning dough beneath my fingers, dealt with fluctuating food costs, navigated the challenges of sourcing premium ingredients and managed the balancing act of quality versus pricing. And staffing. Oh, yes, staffing.
The lessons I learned from standing on a chair at age 3 to opening a scratch-made kitchen are the same lessons that guide me today:
- Treat every product like you’ll be serving it on your family table.
- Emphasize authenticity, which always resonates louder than gimmicks.
- And, most important, remember food is far more than sustenance; it’s storytelling.
These are the firsthand lesson I bring to every project in my work with food brands, distributors and restaurants. I know what it takes behind the scenes and the challenges of bridging the gap between passion and profitability.
And, yes, I still love it – all of it, aside from some of those long nights.
About the Author
Chef Laoise (lee-sha) Rubio brings 22 years of industry experience to her role as foodservice practice lead at Bader Rutter. Professionally trained at Ballymaloe Cookery School in County Cork, Ireland, Laoise worked in restaurants across Europe and the United States before opening her own Italian restaurant outside of Chicago. Laoise transitioned back into marketing, leveraging her expertise as a chef in her work with brands such as Kraft Foods, Kellogg’s, Campbell’s, ConAgra, Lamb Weston and McCain Foods.