Today we’d like to introduce you to Alex Meyer and Luciana Giangrandi.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Alex and Luciana. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
We both have similarly unique backgrounds entering the hospitality industry. We both went to university, studying something very different than where we are today. I studied economics at Emory in Atlanta, and Luci studied creative writing at The New School in New York. One way or another, we both ended up in kitchens around the same time, me at Animal in LA and Luci at Scarpetta in the Meatpacking District. Both those places are amazing and busy restaurants with grueling kitchens, both setting us up for future successes.
We each spent two and a half to three years at those restaurants before moving on. I ended up at Eleven Madison Park in NYC super briefly before moving over to be on the opening team of The Nomad, where Luci and I met. About a year in, I was lucky to be promoted to sous chef, and Luci left with her mentor to open Carbone. Almost two years later, we left New York, Luci first, and me about four months later, meeting her in Italy where she was cooking.
After some extensive world travel, we set up in LA, operating catering and consulting company. This was a very valuable learning experience in operating a business together. I don’t think we had fights as frivolous as when we started this chapter in our life. With time and trust though, we were able to overcome and really figure out how out skillsets mesh.
This understanding was crucial in setting up our first business in Miami, the Mexican food cart La Pollita. We opened it kind of on a whim, but it was received so well, we operated it for almost three years! That exposure gave us a nice platform to work from when opening Boia De. It was an easy headline: “Beloved Food Truck Closing, Soon-to-be-Beloved Restaurant Opening.”
Since we signed the lease in January 2019, Boia De has been a real labor of love. We did a ton of the physical labor on the space ourselves, and have each easily spent 70-80 hours a week at the restaurant since opening. All of our experiences have coalesced into a really beautiful thing. It took a tremendous amount of work, but for Luci and me, it was mostly painless. We had the pedigree to make nice food; we worked at restaurants with amazing operations, so we knew what it was supposed to look like, and working together for five years made it fairly easy for us to run the business together. There were definitely hurdles, but, in the moment, each one seemed surmountable and just needed a little extra effort. Just as the ride was smoothing out and it looked like we had something good and sustainable, COVID hit, and our world got turned upside down.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Before our time working together, it was just a matter of learning, growing, and gaining experience. After teaming up, the biggest obstacle was figuring out how to gel with one another in a work setting. Then until recently, it’s been mostly smooth, with only the normal and expected bumps, like minor disagreements between business partners, potential landlords being unreasonable, nothing that we couldn’t overcome with patience and fortitude.
Far and away, the largest challenge has been COVID. The timing could not have been worse. We had just hit our stride in January and February of 2020, but by the end of March, we had to close. I think we’ve pivoted four times since then. We closed in March, and two days later, opened for takeout and delivery with a totally different menu we knew would be delicious, but still travel well in a box. In June, we reopened our dining room to great demand, and a week later added outdoor dining to the equation. 2 days later, we had to close the restaurant again because Miami said we’d have to go back to takeout, which we prepared for. The next day, they said we could operate outdoor dining, so we poured ourselves into that operation, turning our little corner for our strip mall into a tropical paradise.
At the end of the day, we know what we do is good, and we do it with a positivity that translates to good food and a happy crew. The hardest part right now is just maintaining that attitude throughout the ever-changing landscape of pandemic, government regulation, and business.
Please tell us about Boia De.
Boia De is an intimate, 24-seat restaurant in the Buena Vista area of Miami. We serve eclectic Italian-inspired food. We’re the place here where people sit down and say, “I don’t feel like I’m in Miami,” which makes sense, since we spent our whole careers outside of Miami. At Boia De, we built something that came naturally: space feels like places we’ve worked or eaten in LA and NY, and the food is just the food we would want to eat. We aren’t cornering ourselves in a single cuisine, but if you just asked us to cook, it would come out something like what we serve: traditional Italian base, some creative liberties, and some other added things that are just delicious and hard to come by in such a casual setting like foie gras, bone marrow, or caviar.
We take a lot of pride in our fresh pastas. Each day, we roll what we plan to serve, so everything is super fresh. There’s an undeniable silkiness and refinement to freshly hand-rolled pasta versus even day-old pasta. It takes a significant amount of time, skill, and effort, but it’s worth it, and we think our customers recognize that.
While we’re super proud of all the accolades we’ve been fortunate enough to garner, we’re most proud of and thankful for the team we’ve been able to put together. We never wanted to create that classic restaurant workplace with lots of bro-vibes, yelling, and grabass, and I think we succeeded. We had almost no turnover in the first year of operation. Everyone was so talented and the camaraderie was incredible. That vibe has extended into the COVID-era too. As trying as this time has been, the team has been able to come in and do their jobs with a great attitude.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
Everything from the build-out to hiring takes time, but it all happens quickly. Once it’s gone time, you’ve got to be ready. As an example, we were very focused on permitting and construction and all of a sudden had those boxes checked, but we hadn’t hired a team. If we had a do-over, we would have done it all simultaneously.
Contact Info:
- Address: 5205 NE 2nd Ave
Miami, FL 33137 - Website: www.boiaderestaurant.com
- Phone: 305-967-8866
- Email: info@boiaderestaurant.com
- Instagram: @boiaderestaurant
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/boia-de-miami
Image Credit:
David Bley
Andrea ‘Fuji’ Lorena
Beth Rhodes
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