In Gata we have fantastic restaurants that, based on effort and work, make that when you try them you always want to repeat. This is the case of La Cosa Nostra Pizzeria, a restaurant that reinvents itself every day to offer culinary novelties to all who visit it. Today we are going to know a little more about his career.
How many years have you been in the restaurant?
In November of this year, it will be fifteen years since La Cosa Nostra opened its doors for the first time.
How did the idea or interest in opening this business come about?
Someone may think it was my idea, due to the fact that my family from Dénia has always been dedicated to this industry, but in reality the real driver of the project was María, who had been working for many years in a travel agency and was already a little fed up with office work. She loves cooking so she thought we could try to open a restaurant in the place we had under the house… And here we are, almost fifteen years later.
What are the secrets to success in such a business?
If you consider it a success to keep the doors open for fifteen years, despite the financial crisis of 2008, despite the current health crisis caused by the Covid-19 and despite having our premises in a working class neighborhood especially punished by the closure of shops and businesses in recent years, then you can say that we have been successful, but we don’t like this term at all because it has too many neoliberal connotations. We like to think we have a job, not a business.
What has been the key to attracting customers?
This question is also asked from a neoliberal perspective, based on the big lie that you can control everything. We don’t treat people like a flock or a swarm of flies that we want to drive to a certain place to scratch their pockets. We simply make a gastronomic proposal that satisfies us and we hope that it will be to the liking of the people who visit us. Word of mouth does the rest.
How did you manage to retain them?
It is very satisfying when customers return to your home after trying what you do. The only method we practice to make that happen is to work hard and honestly, making sure prices don’t skyrocket and taking care of the quality of the raw material, giving seasonal products the prominence they deserve. On the other hand we have Sara, who has been our waitress for 10 years and whom we consider another member of our family. We are sure that her naturalness and friendliness has helped us to retain many customers.
What aspects do you find that make a person choose a certain restaurant?
I understand that people who go to a place to eat are looking for a complete experience. If the food is good, but the service is a disaster it will hardly be satisfied the customer who visits you. I believe that we must seek coordination and coherence between different factors, such as cuisine, price, service, cleanliness, decoration, atmosphere, etc. If all these factors are in line, it’s very possible that the customer will be happy and come back.
What aspects of customer service do you think are most important to such a business?
As I mentioned before, we play to our advantage in this regard, as we have Sara, who loves her job and has the ability to convey that love to the customers who visit us. She helps create a good atmosphere for guests to relax and enjoy food and drink without fuss.
What do you recommend to be a benchmark in the market?
I have no idea. We have our project, our ideas and we try to carry them out by doing what I mentioned above. We don’t want to be (nor would we be) any reference. We simply try to enjoy what we do and try to convey that joy to the people who visit us.
Why pizzas and pasta?
Italian cuisine has always been one of our favorite dining options. When we were considering the idea of opening a place to eat there was no place with this offer in Gata de Gorgos and that helped us decide on this type of dish. Honestly, we thought that by offering what was not present in the gastronomic market of Gata, we were more likely to consolidate. A few years ago we changed our logos and decided to include a question mark after the word “pizzeria”, because for a long time we felt we wanted to claim more local products and dishes and wanted to free ourselves a little from this label and offer our customers difficult dining options to see in other “Italian” restaurants.
What is the most successful dish?
If you are referring to the best seller, there is no doubt that it’s pizza, but for some time now, perhaps coinciding with the explosion of the Blat de La Marina project, cocas have also been very well received by our customers.
How has the restaurant adapted to the health crisis?
The most significant change in this aspect has been not to allow access to the dining room to people who come to pick up orders to take away. We installed a screen at the entrance where we serve these customers and only let people who have booked a table into the dining room. Obviously, we have increased the cleaning and disinfection of tables and chairs as customers leave. We have also removed some tables to increase the safety space between customers and we have limited the number of diners according to the instructions of the health authorities.
