The story of “Little Italy East,” slated to open around the beginning of June at 6300 Poplar Avenue, Suite 113, began in Italy.
Two of the owners of the new location are from Italy. Giovanni Caravello is from Sicily and Riccardo Marciano is from Calabria.
They met their wives — owners Brooke Caravello and former Memphian Molly Marciano — in New York.
Giovanni’s mom did the cooking when he was growing up. He worked at the family restaurant after his family moved to New York.
He met Brooke, who was majoring in psychology at Queens College, when they were both working at a New York pizzeria. “I was a pizza maker there,” he says. “She was a waitress.”
They moved to Memphis in 2013 and got married the next year. “I had some family down here,” Brooke says.
Giovanni began working as a dishwasher at the Little Italy at 1495 Union Avenue. “Before we moved to Memphis we were looking at jobs around here. Little Italy was hiring, so I applied. And they hired me.”
He worked his way up. Little Italy’s owner Bill Giannini, who was commuting from Nashville, decided to sell it. “We bought it from him in 2014,” Giovanni says.
And, he adds, “We changed all the recipes, too.”
“Most of the ingredients they were using was frozen, processed, and pre-packaged,” Brooke says. “The biggest change was everything we used was fresh produce.”
And, she says, “The sauces are all made from fresh ingredients. High quality. Everything is made in-house daily. The pasta dishes are made to order.”
In 2016, they opened the Little Italy at 7717 US-70 in Bartlett. “I ran that one,” Brooke says. “And Giovanni ran Midtown.”
They sold the Bartlett restaurant to Giovanni’s cousin in 2018. “He purchased it outright, but it’s still Little Italy,” Giovanni says. “Same recipes.”
Giovanni and Brooke did the same thing with their old Downtown location at 106 GE Patterson Avenue. They bought it in 2019 and sold it in 2020. But, he says, “It’s still Little Italy.”
The new location in East Memphis will be their “first partnership going into it,” Giovanni says.
As for that partnership, he says, “I met Riccardo. He just came into the restaurant, Little Italy in Midtown, with a few friends. We started talking. And down the road we became friends.”
“Just finding another native Italian in Memphis is pretty unique,” Brooke says. “And they immediately bonded.”
And Molly “being an American wife married to an Italian” was “super unique,” she adds. “They became like family pretty quickly.”
Riccardo told Giovanni he always wanted to open a restaurant. “East Memphis came up and we had the opportunity to open one together.”
“I knew how to cook Italian food,” Riccardo says. He used to help his grandmother make her “Sunday homemade sauce,” he says. “Every Sunday was a feast in my house. A lot of my family and friends.”
Molly met Riccardo “on a blind date in New York,” she says. “We met outside of an Italian restaurant.”
They moved to Memphis in 2018. Riccardo always felt Memphis is “more like Italy. The hospitality. The Southern mentality is like Southern Italy.”
The Little Italy in East Memphis will be similar to the Midtown Little Italy, which the Caravellos still own and operate.“The base menu is the same,” Giovanni says. “Also, the recipes are going to be the same. There will be a couple of different pasta dishes. More Italian inspired.”
They also will serve paninis and New York-style pizzas.
They’ll serve Grandma’s Pizza, which uses “the same mozzarella cheese and fresh garlic and fresh basil.”
It’s one of their most popular pizzas on Union Avenue. “It’s the love that we put in it,” Brooke says. “The Italian love.”
The Little Italy “East” is their last Little Italy for now, Giovanni says. “None in the near future. We want to see how this goes first. And then we can plan some other locations.”
They’re always open to new ideas “as long as we can maintain the quality and level of service and everything that I think the community has grown to appreciate,” Brooke says.
“I’m so thrilled,” Riccardo says. “Real excited. Nervous. And overwhelming. Because my life will change a lot when I open that door.”