Joe Bartolotta, President, Bartolotta Restaurants
By his own admission, restaurateur Joe Bartolotta is not your typical entrepreneur. He never attended college nor did he have a business background when he moved to New York at 25 to learn about the food service business. However, he seemed to have a knack for talking to people.
“I was talking to my Dad one night about my future. At that time I was 25, working at UPS loading trucks and tending bar at a few places. I knew I had an ability to talk to people, to build a good rapport. But, I did not have any goals or vision. I had an opportunity in New York--my sister was living and working there, and a brother working as a chef in Italy, so I decided to move to New York and learn as much as I could about the restaurant business,” he said.
In 1993, Bartolotta returned to Milwaukee and opened his family’s first restaurant, Ristorante Bartolotta in Wauwatosa, not far from where he grew up.
“We had to go to many banks before I found one to take a chance and fund us,” he said. “At the time no one was doing rustic northern italian cuisine, so we had to prove ourselves and to educate the market at the same time. We were fortunate to get some good press right out of the box and that helped us along.”
The restaurateur now owns and operates 10 businesses with a staff of 460 employees--many of whom Bartolotta has interviewed himself to be sure they have what he terms the “hospitality gene.”
“I look into their heart and soul to see if they have that hospitality DNA, which is the desire to serve others, because I cannot teach that,” he said.
True entrepreneurs never take a risk, because in their minds, they are so confident in their idea they feel there is no risk involved, he said.
Bartolotta is no stranger to failure. He opened a restaurant on Downer Avenue which he had to close.
“I knew that four other ventures had failed at the same locale but I thought, ‘hey, I’m Joe Bartolotta, I can make this work,’
but it didn’t and we had to close it down. I learned from that experience,” he said, adding that success comes from being able to adapt your ideas to market conditions.
“You start out with one idea, and it turns out that another one works better...you have to be open to that process,” he said.
His company has weathered the recession by staying true to its core values, by having a strong brand and loyal customer base, and by being honest with its employees. Luck also played a part, he said.
“Don’t kid yourself. Luck is a big part of success. You can have the best idea, and sometimes you can’t get a break. That happens in life, but you have to plug along. I have been blessed. I am very lucky because I caught some very good breaks and met some great people along the way.”