Creativity shows up in many forms and this week Jacqueline Nicosia, the co-owner of Ardo Hospitality Group, joins the podcast to chat about the creativity that goes into crafting the perfect guest experience - and the perfect cocktail! This busy mom of two who co-owns her business (which includes 3 Toronto restaurants and a food import company) with her chef husband talks with us about:
This episode is brought to you by Fine Lime Designs Illustrations
This is a great episodes for creatives who:
For a summary of this episode and all the links mentioned please visit:
Episode 144: Jacqueline Nicosia of Ardo Hospitality Group
You can connect with Jacqueline via her instagram account: @jacqnicosia as well as checking out Ardo Restaurant, Dova Restaurant and the soon to open Bar Ardo.
For more information on Let's Talk Womxn in the Toronto area, reach out directly to Jacqueline.
You can find Melissa at finelimedesigns.com, finelimeillustrations.com or on Instagram
You can connect with the podcast on:
For a list of all available episodes, please visit:
And She Looked Up Creative Hour Podcast
Each week The And She Looked Up Podcast sits down with inspiring Canadian women who create for a living. We talk about their creative journeys and their best business tips, as well as the creative and business mindset issues all creative entrepreneurs struggle with. This podcast is for Canadian artists, makers and creators who want to find a way to make a living doing what they love.
Your host, Melissa Hartfiel (@finelimedesigns), left a 20 year career in corporate retail and has been happily self-employed as a working creative since 2010. She's a graphic designer, writer and illustrator as well as the co-founder of a multi-six figure a year business in the digital content space. She resides just outside of Vancouver, BC.
Creativity shows up in many forms and this week Jacqueline Nicosia, the co-owner of Ardo Hospitality Group, joins the podcast to chat about the creativity that goes into crafting the perfect guest experience - and the perfect cocktail! This busy mom of two who co-owns her business (which includes 3 Toronto restaurants and a food import company) with her chef husband talks with us about:
This episode is brought to you by Fine Lime Designs Illustrations
This is a great episodes for creatives who:
For a summary of this episode and all the links mentioned please visit:
Episode 144: Jacqueline Nicosia of Ardo Hospitality Group
You can connect with Jacqueline via her instagram account: @jacqnicosia as well as checking out Ardo Restaurant, Dova Restaurant and the soon to open Bar Ardo.
For more information on Let's Talk Womxn in the Toronto area, reach out directly to Jacqueline.
You can find Melissa at finelimedesigns.com, finelimeillustrations.com or on Instagram
You can connect with the podcast on:
For a list of all available episodes, please visit:
And She Looked Up Creative Hour Podcast
Each week The And She Looked Up Podcast sits down with inspiring Canadian women who create for a living. We talk about their creative journeys and their best business tips, as well as the creative and business mindset issues all creative entrepreneurs struggle with. This podcast is for Canadian artists, makers and creators who want to find a way to make a living doing what they love.
Your host, Melissa Hartfiel (@finelimedesigns), left a 20 year career in corporate retail and has been happily self-employed as a working creative since 2010. She's a graphic designer, writer and illustrator as well as the co-founder of a multi-six figure a year business in the digital content space. She resides just outside of Vancouver, BC.
This week's episode of the And She Looked Up podcast is brought to you by Fine Lime Illustrations. If you love quirky, colorful art transformed into fun handmade stationery items pretty much guaranteed to brighten somebody's day that's just what you'll find in my new online shop at finelimeillustrationscom.
Melissa Hartfiel:That's fine. As in I'm fine, lime as in the fruit, illustrations dot com. Browse the entire collection or sign up for my email list to see some behind the scenes peeks into my studio. You'll also get first notice of new product launches and subscriber only sales, and as an added little bonus, you'll also receive a free coloring sheet to help you relax and de-stress from your day Now on with the show.
Melissa Hartfiel:Welcome to the And She Looked Up podcast. Each week we sit down with inspiring Canadian women who create for a living.
Melissa Hartfiel:We talk about their creative journeys and their best business tips, as well as the creative and business mindset issues. All creative entrepreneurs struggle with. I'm your host, Melissa Hartfiel, and after leaving a 20 year career in corporate retail, I've been happily self-employed for 12 years. I'm a graphic designer, an illustrator and a multi-six figure a year entrepreneur in the digital content space.
Melissa Hartfiel:This podcast is for the artists, the makers and the creatives who want to find a way to make a living doing what they love.
Melissa Hartfiel:Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of th AngiAn Looked Up podcast. As always, I am your host, Melissa, and this week I am really looking forward to welcoming my guest hospitality entrepreneur, Jacqueline Nicosia. Welcome to the show, Jacqueline.
Jacqueline Nicosia:Oh, thank you so much for having me. I'm really looking forward to this Me too.
Melissa Hartfiel:I am really looking forward to this conversation, because one of the things I like doing with this show is challenging the idea of what a creative career should look like and to bring on women working in fields that, on the surface, might not be immediately thought of as creative, or they may be considered more traditionally male dominated or both, but they are in fact, extremely creative, and I think the restaurant industry is a perfect example of that. So, yes, let's get into the interview. So, for those of you who may not be familiar with Jacqueline, she is the co-owner of the Ardo hospitality group in Toronto, which includes Ardo restaurant, dova restaurant, and you have a third restaurant opening this fall, bar Ardo, which I was reading how it got its name, and it's a very cute little story. Oh, thank you. Yes, jacqueline's son's name is Leonardo, and he couldn't say his name properly when he was a little kid, and so that is where Ardo came from, which is very adorable.
Jacqueline Nicosia:Yeah, we gave him the largest name. I guess we could, and he, yes, as you said, he wasn't able to pronounce his names, so that's where it came from, and now he probably goes around saying he has a restaurant named after him. Doesn't go over well with our daughter, but he doesn't have an importing business named after her.
Melissa Hartfiel:That's right. You also operate an importing business as well, so you have a lot of different things going on all under one umbrella, and we're going to get into that a little bit further into the show. But the first question I ask everyone who comes on the show is did you feel like you were creative as a kid?
Jacqueline Nicosia:Oh, most definitely. I think creativity has always been at the forefront of my childhood and leading throughout my entire life. I've always been creating and designing things, from simple things like building a fort to trying new recipes in the kitchen, or photography and fashion and design. I was always very curious to work with different materials and ideas and lots of experimenting, and so that has really opened up quite a field for me of possibilities Absolutely.
Melissa Hartfiel:And you had a rather adventurous young adulthood. You traveled quite a bit. That's also how you met your husband, I believe, and how you started the whole Artohospitality group adventure. But maybe tell us a little bit about when you left school. Where did you think you were going to go in life? Did you think you would wind up owning a restaurant, or did you have other plans in mind?
Jacqueline Nicosia:I definitely knew I always wanted to have creativity as a part of my career. I don't think I knew which direction I wanted to go, leaving school Only enough. I went into finance, and then one day I looked around and I said what the heck am I doing here? And within a month I had left that, and as I was younger, I was always traveling for the experience of food and culture, and so that led me to eventually get go to Sicily, where my family is from, which is where I met my partner, and from there we came back to Canada and I started my journey, I guess, into the working world, with event design and management. I was working with a lot of notable clients to bring their events to life, and it was a very exciting industry to be in, but I always knew that I wanted to be able to take these skills and move it into something that I can call my own, and ultimately that led to my husband and I combining forces and opening up our first location, which was our dope.
Melissa Hartfiel:Your husband is a chef. I think he is yes. So one of the questions that I've been thinking about a lot this year is the definition of success and how it's different for everyone and for you as a creative entrepreneur. What do you consider success for yourself and this can be anything, just what is it that will make you feel, at the end of the day, that you have been successful?
Jacqueline Nicosia:I think, for me, being successful is being able to build a business that is based around my values. It's also, especially in the industry that I'm in, it's about being able to create a great experience for our customers and ultimately, at the end of the day, having a positive impact on the community that is around us, and that also includes supporting our employees and helping them to grow, and I think, for me, being successful is finding a way to also inspire the younger generation, which also includes our children, and showing them what they can be, what opportunities are out there and, ultimately, how they can make a difference in people's lives. So, on a personal level, it's about being able to continually grow and improve as a person, as a business owner, as a creative person in both of those fields, and I can say that I think I have been able to successfully do that through our restaurant. That's awesome.
Melissa Hartfiel:There's been many ups and downs, for sure, along the way, but yeah, I don't think there's a small business owner out there who hasn't had some big ups and downs Absolutely is. And, on that note, I often think we learn far more from our mistakes than we learn from our successes. And are there any mistakes out there that you have made, that A you're glad you made and that you learned a big lesson from? Is there anything that stands out for you?
Jacqueline Nicosia:Oh gosh, I've definitely had my fair share of mistakes. I'm not sure I could pin it down just to one, but I think it's important to see every setback as an opportunity to learn and improve on. I don't like to use the word failure, because I feel like you only fail if you repeat the same mistake over and over again. I think failure is the wrong word for it, but I see it as a way to make a change and improve. And yeah, I don't know where I was going with that one.
Melissa Hartfiel:I think that's true for a lot of us. I think there are a few people out there who have one big mistake that they've made that really had an impact on their business, but I think for most of us it's just a series of small mistakes and they just kind of move you forward. They're learning opportunities rather than mistakes or failures, yes, but it's all those little mistakes that kind of are what come together and push you to the next level. But there seems to be a lot of them some days.
Jacqueline Nicosia:Yeah, I mean there's a lot of little mistakes along the way, I would say. Actually, now that I think about it, I would say my biggest mistake that I have made in business is not reaching out to the proper people to solve a problem that may have been presented where I know it's not my area or field, so you know whether it be the right accountant or right lawyer. I think you really need to know where your limits are, yes, and be okay and comfortable reaching out to people when the time comes.
Melissa Hartfiel:I am nodding my head vigorously in agreement. I think that's very true and I think, as small business owners, we often tend to feel like we can do it all or we're bootstrapping and we feel we have to do it all, but sometimes you save yourself a lot of money by going to the right person from the get-go.
Jacqueline Nicosia:That is most certainly the truth. I think with Ardo we learned a couple of lessons, and moving into our second restaurant we learned a different set of lessons. So with our third, we feel armed and ready.
Melissa Hartfiel:When are you expecting to open the third restaurant?
Jacqueline Nicosia:In the autumn. So we're hoping late October, early November, but probably early November.
Melissa Hartfiel:That's actually probably right around when this episode will air, so if you're listening now, you might want to check it out or have it on your radar to check out in the next few weeks. So that's exciting.
Jacqueline Nicosia:Yeah we're very excited for the new location. Yeah that's the passion project for us.
Melissa Hartfiel:Is it? Okay, that's really great. I can't imagine running three restaurants simultaneously. I feel like that's got to be a lot. But at this point I'm guessing you probably feel like your systems are in place and you have an idea of what should be happening and when it should be happening, kind of thing.
Jacqueline Nicosia:Yeah, of course. Plus, I mean we're nothing without the team that surround us as well. So we have an incredible team at both of our locations, and we wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for them.
Melissa Hartfiel:Yes, your people are so important, especially in hospitality, because that's just such a people-facing industry.
Jacqueline Nicosia:Yeah, they're the face of your brand. Absolutely. They represent you, they represent your business For us, they represent everything we are. So and we say that to our children as well you represent more than just yourself.
Melissa Hartfiel:You represent a lot of people around you, and I think it's an important lesson to that is such a good lesson for kids. Yes, absolutely. Do you think this is just going a little off topic, but do you think that either of your kids will want to go into this industry as they get older? Are you seeing glimmers of that at this point?
Jacqueline Nicosia:We are seeing a little bit of it, but they do have other things that they're passionate about, and I think we never want them to feel like they have to move into this industry or take over the family business, because I think that's a lot to carry, yeah. So whenever we see that there's something that really strikes a chord with them, we try and help them to pursue it. But our kids are definitely involved.
Jacqueline Nicosia:Yeah, so you know they'll know when something's a little bit off at the restaurant. It's quite funny. My son has a very good palate. It's almost a little scary how good it is. Maybe he'll become a food critic. Who knows Food critic?
Melissa Hartfiel:With a restaurant family.
Jacqueline Nicosia:Yeah, that would be interesting. They're pretty involved in what we do. We like to have them involved and know what's going on in the restaurants and with the new location they'll come up with different suggestions or, you know, we'll show them the design aspect and ask them what they think, and they helped with looking at the logo and so every part of the process. We do have them usually involved.
Melissa Hartfiel:Oh, that's really nice that you can have them with you in that, because I know it is an industry that is very time consuming, so to be able to involve them is another way that you can spend time with them.
Jacqueline Nicosia:So yeah, well, the reality is that I have to work once I pick them up from school, so as much as I'm working from home sometimes, I do try and get them involved as much as I can in the fun parts.
Melissa Hartfiel:Yes, they don't need to be involved in accounting and legal just yet. No, not that stuff. So in every episode, I ask my guests if they saw themselves as creative, and we talked about that as a kid and so often when I ask that question, especially if the answer is no, people tend to reference the fact that they didn't see themselves as creative because they don't paint or draw, and this just fascinates me that that is what people associate with creativity, and one of the things I'm trying very hard to demonstrate on the show is that creativity is a trait that we all have. The creativity question is kind of a trick question, because the answer is of course, you were creative as a kid.
Melissa Hartfiel:We're all creative, but creativity can show up in so many forms, and I think it would be fair to say that people don't immediately think of the restaurant industry or the hospitality industry as being traditionally creative, and yet I think it is an extremely creative field. You work specifically within your business as an event planner and you also are very involved in cocktail creation, and both of those are extremely creative. So how does your creativity manifest itself in your day? What is it about what you do that fulfills your creative itch, or that you feel is the creative piece of your day.
Jacqueline Nicosia:Oh gosh, that's. That's a lot of kind of questions going into one. Let me think about this.
Jacqueline Nicosia:I mean, I can definitely say that creativity is an essential component of this industry, from the day to day operations to planning an event for a client, to menu designs.
Jacqueline Nicosia:But it's not just about creating a memorable experience for your guests. It also is about finding a way to pivot and problem solve and you know if an issue comes up and being able to make innovative changes, marketing strategies and it really this is an industry and same thing with events as well where little things can come up, so you constantly have to be thinking on the spot and being able to come up with a quick solution to a problem and being able to think outside of the box. So I think the two really go hand in hand and I think, whether it's the event industry or the hospitality industry, I think being creative is an integral part of a business. With our business, it's no surprise that it's slim margins. So I think you really need to find a way to balance the quality of what someone is experiencing and also their expectations, while making a profit. So I think that creativity really is an integral part of business.
Melissa Hartfiel:Absolutely. It's funny because I used to work in IT, which definitely does not something people think of with creativity, and my role was as a designer in IT, so I wasn't a techie. But the most creative people I have worked with ever in my life are software developers, because it is all about innovation and problem solving, and finding their favorite word in the software industry is elegant finding an elegant solution to a problem. I love that, yes, and yet nobody thinks of programmers as being creative, but incredibly creative people, and problem solving is what makes all that's what being human is it's?
Melissa Hartfiel:problem solving every day.
Jacqueline Nicosia:Yeah, I mean like you said, there's being creative where there's the typical art and painting and photography and films, but there really is, to me, a whole other side of being creative and that's learning how to also expand your business and making changes when you see that something is not working and you have to find a way to pivot. To me, that's all a part of being a successful person.
Melissa Hartfiel:Absolutely. Do you feel like creating the perfect cocktail can be a work of art, though?
Jacqueline Nicosia:Oh, 100%. I deal with the cocktail programs and for me it's a lot of fun. And also, too, I find being creative is not just about what I do, so I like by myself. I work very closely with my team, I like to get them involved, and I feel like a great idea just doesn't come from one source, because people have different perspectives. But at the end of the day, I think myself, working with my team whether I'm in the last one or not, we're able to bounce ideas off each other and ultimately there might be something that I haven't thought of and someone else on my team will say hey, you know, like this garnish is great, but what if we just tweaked it a little bit and turned it into this and ultimately that's what goes on our menu.
Melissa Hartfiel:Yes, I think there's something about being around other people who are passionate about what they do that fuels your own creativity. Oh, of course. Yeah, which is why collaboration and teamwork can be such an important part of anyone's creative process. That's how I feel about it.
Jacqueline Nicosia:Definitely, and I think there's more than just what it looks like. You know, it's how it gets presented and the smell the site smells all of your senses that go into it.
Melissa Hartfiel:I used to do a lot of food photography and shooting cocktails was my absolute favorite thing to do. Just the perfect cocktail is just so beautiful.
Jacqueline Nicosia:It is a lot of fun, but it is quite interesting when photos are being done for our food and for our drinks, how you need to change certain aspects of it to present a certain way.
Melissa Hartfiel:I think it's interesting that what you do is very creative, but there's also a very definitive business component to what you do. You run multiple restaurants, you have a food import company and you create and plan events through your whole umbrella of businesses and there is, at the end of the day, there is an expectation that you are there to make a profit and because otherwise you wouldn't be in business, and I think this is something that a lot of creatives get really nervous about. That money can be a scary word, it can taint the work. So we have a lot of conversations on this podcast with women who have at some point got stuck in this myth of the starving artist or the starving creative. And is that something you ever struggle with? The balancing the creative Jacqueline with Jacqueline who runs multiple businesses.
Jacqueline Nicosia:I touched on this a little bit before, but I would say, like I said, the margins in the industry are quite lean. So I think there is that challenge between wanting to keep the quality high or the experience high, while also balancing out what you're offering and the pricing. It can be quite tricky to find that right balance to succeed, but I think because of my creativity, I'm able to successfully find that balance for the most part. But, like I said, I think they really do go hand in hand and hand and I think it's not an easy place to be in, especially with the hospitality industry and being able to make money when you have all these fluctuations. But for us, we feel it's worth working through and pursuing. Yeah.
Melissa Hartfiel:And the hospitality industry has certainly had its challenges over the last few years. When it comes to the idea of being successful financially as a business, is that something that ever frightens you? I guess maybe frightens not really the right word that I'm looking for, but do you ever feel resistance to the idea of earning money or is it something that you wholly embrace? Because I feel like people sort of tend to be on one side of that or the other, and I think a lot of creatives would like to get to this point where they could wholly embrace the idea of like, yeah, it's okay for me to make money. Like it's totally okay for me to make money.
Jacqueline Nicosia:Oh, I definitely would embrace that. I don't believe in the starving artist. I think if you have something to offer and people understand the quality behind it, they're willing to pay for it and I think that we bring something to the table and to our community and so if we're giving something out to them, then I think there's it's okay to have the expectation that you would receive something in return, Absolutely.
Melissa Hartfiel:You bring value to others and that should be compensated. Yes, absolutely. It is such a tricky mindset for a lot of people in creative fields and I think a lot of people.
Jacqueline Nicosia:I know.
Melissa Hartfiel:I know because, like I said, we discuss this on almost every single episode at some point. So it's just I think, being creative and also being a woman, we get a lot of different messages about money than maybe we would if we were male.
Jacqueline Nicosia:So I mean, if I were to also look at the event industry, though and you know what I have done for many, many years, and I continue to do for our current clients there are so many different levels of budgets as well, so you have to be able to find a way to bring out the same quality of a result within different budgets as well. So there is that other side to it too.
Jacqueline Nicosia:Yeah, and that's creative in its own right, oh it definitely makes you get pretty creative at times, but you know it pushes your boundaries and I think that's what makes you learn and expand, and for me, that's what I get excited about, is it? I get excited about little problems and how to solve them.
Melissa Hartfiel:That's interesting because in my previous business we put on a three-day conference, national conference, every year and the thing that drove us to keep doing it was I mean, it was a tremendous amount of work, which I'm sure you are very aware of, and the thing that kept us going every year was that at the end of every conference we'd kind of look at it and be like, yeah, we could have done that better, so we have to do another one because we know we can do it better. And it wasn't until we kind of felt like we had topped out, like we were like, yeah, I don't think we can take this any further that we started to. We were ready to move on to trying a new challenge I guess is the best way to put that but it was always that post-event, the rundown.
Melissa Hartfiel:Yeah, exactly where we'd be like, oh, we could have done that better. Or oh, wouldn't it be cool if we could do it this way next year. And that just drove us to keep going. I love that feeling of just the challenge of knowing that I haven't done my best yet, so I need to keep going.
Jacqueline Nicosia:There's doing it good, and then there's realizing that one tiny little tweak, yes, could have just Just take it to the top.
Melissa Hartfiel:Yes, absolutely, and not just knowing that it could, but wanting to try it, like we got to try it because we know this could have. Yeah, yeah, that was definitely a big rush for us when we were putting on those events. So now the food industry and my previous business was also in the food industry this is it's a notoriously challenging environment for women. It's got a bit of a reputation and it's long hours and the hours are not always conducive to having a family and it can be a very challenging place to be. So what has it been like for you?
Jacqueline Nicosia:Because you've been doing this for quite a while now yeah, I mean, I've definitely encountered some of these struggles in this industry firsthand. It is very difficult and not very easy when you do have a family and trying to find that balance between the two. Now, both my husband and I are partners in the business, so we do split our timing up and try and tag team, but it's not an easy world for women to move into and I don't think it's the most welcoming either, especially for the higher positions.
Melissa Hartfiel:I remember hearing in an interview we did several years ago with a pastry chef who was a female and she mentioned that there are so many women out there who have the potential to be a head chef in a restaurant or the executive chef of a restaurant, but they tend to lean towards being the pastry chef because the demands are not the right word. I can't remember exactly how she worded it, but essentially it was just that being the pastry chef was more welcoming to her as a woman and I thought that was really interesting but also sad.
Jacqueline Nicosia:Yeah, I would agree. It breaks my heart to hear someone say that they feel like they're more comfortable at a lower position, and I will say that when we first started out our business, I guess because of what people were saying around us, because my husband is the chef, he should be the face of it. That's what's going to make it succeed and do well. Yes, in part that's true. I think what has been commonly said from some people, where they're like oh, he's the one that makes the magic happen. He does 100% and he's incredible at what he does. But the reality is the magic doesn't just magically happen. There's an entire 75% of the business on the back end that needs to succeed for that magic to take place.
Melissa Hartfiel:Yes, as a woman who is, you're in a leadership role in this industry. You are a co-owner of a multi-restaurant hospitality group. Do you feel pressure on you to create change for women in food and make it more welcoming? And when I say create pressure or feel pressure, is it pressure that you welcome or does it feel like it could be a lot some days?
Jacqueline Nicosia:There's a few different angles, I guess, for this. For me, like I said at the beginning, perhaps I had thought one way about the business when it was starting out and I'm not sure where it switched. Maybe it was through the very beginning of COVID. But I really started to think you know well, I am a huge part of our business and what makes it successful. So why shouldn't I be like, bring myself out behind the curtain a little bit which you know I'm not used to being in the forefront of things but in the last couple of years I started to push myself in some different directions.
Jacqueline Nicosia:Or, a couple of months ago, I was asked to be one of the four co-hosts for let's Talk Women that just launched in Canada.
Jacqueline Nicosia:It's an organization that started in the United States, in Chicago, and the whole focus behind the organization is about the collaboration amongst women entrepreneurs in the hospitality industry specifically, and it's about showing up for each other, about sharing information, about supporting each other, advice, and so this is just recently started. Like I said, it launched last month and there's three other women that are the co-hosts for our city. So every month we're leading discussions and I think that's one way where you can really start to support women in this industry. But you know, we do make an effort to bring women into our business, to promote women into leadership positions. We have at one of our locations, a female lead in our kitchen and she's absolutely incredible. She has a lot of skills that she brings to the table that you know all of our pasts, who have been paramount to our success as well, but she really has stepped up and I think she brings a completely different set of skills to the table and we're very proud of her. Oh, that's awesome.
Melissa Hartfiel:I think it's an industry that could definitely benefit if it was a more welcoming space for women, because I do think women I mean I always associate food in my family with the women in my family and yet a lot of them would never have considered doing anything like that professionally. Yeah, I just think it's an industry that could really benefit from having women more involved at higher levels.
Jacqueline Nicosia:Funny enough. Now that you're saying it, it sounds a little bit strange because, like you said, women were usually running the kitchens in their household, and yet this industry is led by males, so there's something that sounds quite off.
Melissa Hartfiel:There's a little disconnect there isn't there.
Jacqueline Nicosia:There's definitely a bit of a disconnect there. But I think women do have a natural set of skills that makes them really well suited for leadership roles and I think that if they are given the opportunity, they will excel in those positions. And hopefully it's a small change, I think, every single day. But as more women are welcomed into the higher level positions in our industry, I think it starts to create a healthier work environment for everyone who's in the industry, but also for clients as well. They bring a unique perspective to everything and that, slowly, is leading to progress and change.
Melissa Hartfiel:I think that's a really nice way to look at it, hopefully Faster than it has so far.
Jacqueline Nicosia:Yes, we're getting there.
Melissa Hartfiel:I think that's the big takeaway in a lot of these conversations is it's just welcoming more point of views to any industry is going to make it a healthier industry, a more interesting industry, correct, and it's just. But when we're only seeing one point of view over and over again, that's when we run into trouble.
Jacqueline Nicosia:I fully agree. I think it makes for I mean not just for the restaurant industry. But, like you, said the industry. I think it makes for a more well-rounded business, absolutely a more well-rounded and a healthier business.
Melissa Hartfiel:at the end of the day, when you have all those things firing at once, it just makes for a better environment overall.
Jacqueline Nicosia:I mean I'm very fortunate where my partner is very supportive. In that way he also sees the disconnect with how he's treated versus how I'm treated and he's always championing behind me. And so I am very lucky in that way where my partner is not just a normal male who perhaps is not trying to help with those changes.
Melissa Hartfiel:Yes, I wasn't sure whether or not to approach this or not during the interview, but in my previous business I had a male business partner. We were not romantically involved or anything. We were just business partners and friends and it was so wild to me to see how differently we were treated. And I spent the first big chunk of my career working in retail, both on the front line, where you get a lot of harassment let's just be honest from customers, though rarely from your coworkers, but you're kind of more mentally prepared for that. I don't know why when you're on the front line, that sounds terrible to say, but I almost knew how to deal with that. And then spending another 10 years working in IT, which very often I was the only woman but I was very well treated. I really have no complaints about that.
Melissa Hartfiel:And then to go to owning my own business with a male business partner and all of a sudden feeling like a second class citizen not ever from him, but just very true. Oh my goodness, and I'm totally. It's incredibly frustrating. It's so frustrating. And he could see it too. It initially took him a little while, but once he saw it he couldn't unsee it and it was just even things like just banking. You just don't think banking is going to be a big deal until you have a male business partner and you're not a man and I was responsible for our finances. People used to use his last name when they were talking to me because they assumed we were married.
Melissa Hartfiel:Oh my goodness, that's the only way that I could possibly be sitting there in front of them and just do things like that that you think were in the 2000s. How is this even happening? So yes, I would.
Jacqueline Nicosia:Oh, it's mind-blowing that this is still a thing, but it very much is, and there's been many meetings where whoever it is that we're sitting across from will ask a question and revert to the world, defer the question to me, because it's the area that I deal with, and I think I talked about this before in another podcast where they couldn't possibly just understand that I was the final word for this decision that had to be made, and so they constantly would look back to him.
Melissa Hartfiel:Yes, it's the eye contact that just.
Jacqueline Nicosia:Yeah, and they don't realize. You might be listening to me, but when your eye contact is shifting, that's disrespectful, absolutely. And the number of times I've been called his wife and it doesn't sit well with me. Yes, I'm his wife and I'm very proud to be, but I'm also his partner. So when everything that you have goes into your businesses and that is your entire life, it's a hard pill to swallow at times, but I think you just need to very politely find a way to correct it. When someone has said something that is not correct, when you are referred to as the wife or if you are introduced in a certain way, you find a polite way just to realign and I think once you do that, usually I find that they learn pretty quickly.
Melissa Hartfiel:Yes, and I think you made an interesting point there that a lot of the time they don't even realize that they've done it because, it's so ingrained that and it's not until they're corrected that they go.
Melissa Hartfiel:Oh yeah, sorry about that, but it can be hard. I definitely know for me. I could get very emotional about it at times, and it's frustrating that we still have to do this, and so it is wonderful to hear that there are partners out there who are trying to make that change as well. So, on that note, you do work with your spouse, and this is something which, surprising I'm not married, but I get asked about this all the time is would you have any tips for working with or bringing your spouse into the business, or working with your spouse? And so what has that been like Working? Did you know immediately that the two of you wanted to open a business together, or is it something that came about more gradually and you kind of had to learn how to not only be husband and wife, but also partner and partner?
Jacqueline Nicosia:Yeah, that's a good question, I think. From the beginning, I don't think our initial thoughts were okay, we're going to be working together and opening up the business together. But as I went through my career and he went through his career, we then got to a point where I think we were frustrated within our roles and really wanting more for us and for ourselves, and so we made a decision. I mean it was a nervous decision because a lot of people say, oh, you know, like when you work with your partner, it can destroy your partnership at home, your marriage. So I think we were a little bit nervous moving into this new world together, but I actually think it I don't think I know it's strengthened our relationship because of the type of work that we were in. We never really saw each other very much and both of us work in very separate roles.
Jacqueline Nicosia:So he is a chef. His background he does have a culinary background and that's what he has done for many years very successfully in Sicily and in Canada as well. So that's where his passion lies and so that's where his concentration is, on the business. And then all of my skills are operations and events and creative direction. So it really is on the opposite side of the business.
Melissa Hartfiel:So you really had like a natural divide from the get-go.
Jacqueline Nicosia:We did. I mean, there's some things that are in between that normally don't deal with. So I think at the beginning I would try and deal with certain things and then naturally we saw that it was better suited to him and vice versa. There's some things that he started handling at the beginning of opening up the business, because you wear so many hats, and then we realized down the road that okay, no, this is more suited toward me, so I had one, if you had one.
Jacqueline Nicosia:As I went on, we shifted a little bit, but we did have our separate skills that we do quite well and complement each other, and then there's little things in the middle that we bounce back and forth between us.
Melissa Hartfiel:Yeah, and I think do you find that that's a key, regardless of whether you're in business with your spouse or with a business partner, do you think having those clearly defined roles is important to functioning together as a team?
Jacqueline Nicosia:I do. But at the same time, I don't think we would be as successful if we weren't open minded to being a part of our opposite set of skills. He deals with the culinary side of things, but I'm still involved and we still bounce each ideas off each other. I have the final say in my role, he has the final say in his role, but we have respect for each other. When we see that something should be adjusted or slightly tweaked, that we sit down, and I don't think there's one decision in this business that we haven't gone to each other to have that discussion or make a small change and then make that final decision. So I think, yes, it is important that you have different roles that you're concentrating on, but I think, more so than that, having the respect for each other to be open minded to making change within those roles is paramount.
Melissa Hartfiel:Yeah, I agree with you. I know in my own experience we had very different working styles and it was learning to accept the fact that he's not going to do things the way that I do them and I'm not going to do things the way that he does them, just from a pure working standpoint, and learning to kind of like, as long as he gets what he needs to do done and I get what I need to do done, how we get there, we have to just let it go if he doesn't do it the way that I would have done it or that kind of thing. But we had very clearly defined roles. But again, like you, we would meet up at least once a day just to bounce things off each other and before either of us would make necessarily a final decision on something. Just that little reassurance.
Jacqueline Nicosia:That's also the creative process too. Yeah, absolutely, I see something from a very different perspective. And same thing for him. So he might have an idea or I might have an idea, and then, once we put it through each other's lens, it allows for you to take a step back and see it from a different perspective and perhaps, sometimes, maybe it's not the right perspective, but sometimes it's that perspective you need to make the smarter and better change for the business. Absolutely.
Melissa Hartfiel:You alluded to it earlier when we talked a little bit about your kids, but is there an off switch where you go from?
Jacqueline Nicosia:Oh gosh no, I think, if you're an entrepreneur, there really is no off switch.
Jacqueline Nicosia:We do try. It's a dimmer switch. Yeah, that's the perfect word for it. It is a dimmer, we just dim it down.
Jacqueline Nicosia:There are moments where there could be something big happening at the restaurant, whatever issue it might be, and we'll come home, or it's our day off and we'll see it creep up into our conversations and things start to get frustrated or heated, and then we'll say, okay, let's put this to bed until tomorrow.
Jacqueline Nicosia:Tonight is about us, it's about our kids, it's about our family, so we are able to see when those types of situations arise. But naturally, we're constantly talking about our business, and now our children are talking about our business as well. So when we go out for dinner, it's really interesting to see how, because you're constantly creating and you get ideas from everywhere you are, whether you're at a fair or at a fancy restaurant or going into a furniture store, like I was with my kids yesterday and I picked something up and I said to my son Leonardo, what do you think if I did this cocktail on here, and you can see how there's things that start to bounce off of them, or they'll taste a dish and they'll describe perhaps how they would change it or compare it to some of the dishes that we have and how, perhaps if we were to add something into it, how that might change. Or if we walk into a restaurant he likes how they did something a certain way or the service and they'll mention that, and same thing with our daughter.
Jacqueline Nicosia:So it's interesting to see how now it really is a family affair.
Melissa Hartfiel:Do your kids have? Are they adventurous eaters, I guess that's the best way to say it? Are they very open to any kind of new food?
Jacqueline Nicosia:For the most part they are, I think when your younger texture plays a really big role. But for the most part they're pretty adventurous. Usually they'll try something once and then, if they don't like it, they know they don't like it. But yeah, they're pretty adventurous. I mean, they eat a lot of different things and we expose them to a lot of foods.
Melissa Hartfiel:They're fortunate in that way. Yeah, I would think that they would get a lot of exposure to foods that maybe the average kid wouldn't necessarily on a regular basis at any rate.
Jacqueline Nicosia:So yeah, that's pretty cool and I think when I was younger too, that was a big part. Food was always a huge part of my life. If you were to ask my parents, I ate and tried everything, and the stranger it sounded or the more interesting it sounded, I wanted it and I used to travel just for food. So I talk about this with my kids all the time and so I try and make sure that they understand that that's also a part of learning about a culture and a country and it's a part of the overall experience and it's okay if you don't like something, but you really should just try it.
Jacqueline Nicosia:What do you have to lose.
Melissa Hartfiel:What is the most interesting thing that you have eaten, given what you do for a living and the amount that you've traveled?
Jacqueline Nicosia:Oh, Okay, so Okay, so Okay, so Okay, so Okay, so Okay, so Okay, so Okay, so Okay. I have definitely tried some very interesting types of meats while traveling through Indonesia and Southeast Asia. For me, perhaps the strangest things are some of the bugs I've eaten. Yeah, but it's a pretty long list.
Melissa Hartfiel:Yes, I would say bugs would be the strangest, for me as well. I have only been able to do it if they are incorporated into things. I haven't been able to just eat one handed to me. The live ones, I would say, are the hardest. You did it. Oh good for you, yeah.
Jacqueline Nicosia:For giving it a go, one of the things I mean. I lived in Japan for a little bit and eating the octopus would get cut. You would have it while it's still. I mean it's not alive, but it's still moving. Which I guess. Yeah, I've told my son about that and the tentacles kind of stick to you and my son wants to try that so badly, which surprises me.
Melissa Hartfiel:But I think actually that doesn't surprise me too much. Little boys are. Yeah, Jacqueline, thank you so much for being on the show this week. It's been great to chat with you. It's just such a pleasure. Yes, I've really enjoyed it. What is next for you? You have your new restaurant coming soon. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about that or how much you're ready to share.
Jacqueline Nicosia:Yes, Bar Ardo is opening up in a couple of months. It's a passion project for us. It really is a collection of all of the things that my husband and I have been inspired by while we have traveled whether it be locations, menus, culture, and it really is sort of our travel diaries in a way. The design behind it as well, I was able to get heavily involved in, so I'm just so excited for it to open. We're really looking forward to it, and after that we're considering other markets to move into. So it's exciting.
Melissa Hartfiel:Yeah, that's awesome. I will have to check it out next time I'm in Toronto. Yeah, anytime I love to eat. So yes, but where can our audience find you, both online and if they want to go out for a delicious meal?
Jacqueline Nicosia:Where can they find us? Ardo is at King and Sherbourne, and Bar Ardo will actually be a couple of blocks down from there, so right around the corner from the St Lawrence Market. Dova is in Cabbage Town and you can find us all online on social and we're there.
Melissa Hartfiel:Reach out to us. We will include links to all of that in the show notes for those of you who want to check them out and find Jacqueline online. And yes, so yes again. Thank you so much for being here. This was really great. Thank you oh, yep.
Jacqueline Nicosia:And sorry also for any women who are female owners in the restaurant industry and would like to join. Let's Talk, women. Please reach out to me and we can get you connected and onto the list and a part of our community.
Melissa Hartfiel:Yes absolutely, and we'll talk after we finish recording here, but we'll see if we can get you some links that we can put in the show notes for that as well. That would be great. Yes, so yes. Thank you so much, and thank you to all of you for listening this week. It has been a lot of fun, and we will be back again in two weeks with another brand new episode and we will talk to you all then. Thanks everyone, thanks.
Jacqueline Nicosia:Melissa.
Melissa Hartfiel:Thank you so much for joining us for the Angie LookDepp Creative Hour.
Melissa Hartfiel:If you're looking for links or resources mentioned in this episode, you can find detailed show notes on our website at annshilookdeppcom. While you're there, be sure to sign up for our newsletter for more business tips, profiles of inspiring community and creative women and so much more. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to subscribe to the show via your podcast app of choice so you never miss an episode. We always love to hear from you, so we'd love it if you'd leave us a review through iTunes or Apple podcasts. Help us a note via our website at annshilookdeppcom, or come say hi on Instagram at annshilookdepp. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.