A trio of pastas at Pasta Sisters. | Photo by Lisa Jennings
“We used to come to work to work, to take care of business,” said Giorgia Sinatra, a co-owner of the three-unit Pasta Sisters concept in Los Angeles.
“Now you come to work to solve problems,” she said.
So it seems in the restaurant world these days.
And yet Pasta Sisters, a fast-casual concept known for its tight menu of fresh pastas and sauces, and other Italian treats, has evolved over the past 10 years into a restaurant brand preparing next steps for growth.
The improbable story of this family-run operation is one long tale of problem solving, in a way, that kept moving the brand forward—albeit at times reluctantly.
It’s not just sisters. In fact, Giorgia’s brother Francesco Sinatra is also a partner (he jokingly refers to himself as the “prettiest sister.”)
And, really, it’s all about their mother. And their grandmother.
The story begins in the Northern Italy town of Padova, where Giorgia’s mother Paola Da Re was raising her three children. Paola’s oldest, the aforementioned son Francesco, decided to come to Los Angeles for a year in 2008, looking for something different. (As it happened, Francesco was born in the U.S., so he was a citizen. But that’s another long story.)
Francesco worked as a busboy and ended up falling in love, getting married and having a son that would become Paola’s first grandchild.
No grandmother wants an ocean between them and their next generation. So Paola made the move to the U.S. too, bringing Giorgia’s younger sister Francesca (now Lico) with her to LA. (At the time, Giorgia was at university and stayed in Italy.)
The family: (from left) Francesco Sinatra, Francesca Lico, Giorgia Sinatra and matriarch Paola Da Re. | Photo courtesy of Pasta Sisters.
Paola didn’t speak much English at the time, but she landed a job as a nanny. That job involved some meal preparation, and soon her employers learned that Paola was a fabulous cook, particularly her pasta, which she made fresh, as a good nonna should.
Soon, Paola was cooking for her employers’ friends, and others were asking to buy her lasagna, Bolognese or other dishes.
“She was kind of becoming like a little celebrity,” said Giorgia, who had come to join her mother for a visit at this point to help out with what was becoming a cottage business.
Not surprisingly, Giorgia ended up staying in LA too.
“We were still having our normal jobs, and then, at the end of the night, we were going home, and we were making food and cooking all night.
“And then we bought this freezer and this fridge that we put in the living room. And, in the mornings before going to work, we’d deliver the food around to people that ordered it,” she said.
In time, the family decided to look for a commercial space, and they found a tiny spot with a kitchen.
But they hadn’t intended to open a restaurant.
Paola, however, was friends with Celestino Drago, a famed Italian chef with multiple restaurants across the city, who advised the family to open as a restaurant, rather than a commercial kitchen, because permitting was a bit easier.
And so, 10 years ago, Pasta Sisters was born, offering a varying array of freshly made pastas and sauces that could be ordered at the counter in a tiny storefront with just a few seats.
Pastas can be topped with burrata. | Photo courtesy of Pasta Sisters.
“People were thinking that we were crazy when we were trying to open and find investors,” said Giorgia. “They were saying, ‘This is not going to work because LA is a gluten-free town. LA is a low-carb town.’”
In addition, Italian food in Los Angeles tends to be very high end. The fresh pasta available was (and still is) pricey.
But Pasta Sisters family wanted to make their food accessible. In the beginning, a beautifully presented tower of Paola’s spaghetti Bolognese, for example, was about $8 or $9.
“I remember, the first day we opened we made $380,” said Giorgia. “I thought it was the most money we would ever see.”
Soon, however, Pasta Sisters was discovered by BuzzFeed, which posted a video comparing the inexpensive Pasta Sisters very favorably against much higher-end restaurants around town.
The next day, Giorgia arrived to find hundreds of people waiting for the little storefront to open. They opened at 11:30 a.m. and sold out of food by 2 p.m. And this went on for months, with guests waiting more than two hours for pasta, said Giorgia.
“It was very overwhelming,” she said. “But it was also bad for many reasons, because we had created this little community with our neighbors and the people who knew us.”
The upside, however, was financial success. Pasta Sisters started hiring (and many of those first hires are still with the company).
Then one customer who happened to own an artsy retail development in Culver City asked if Pasta Sisters would like to open in a larger space there.
And, in 2018, they did.
At Pasta Sisters, guests can order at the counter to select their pasta—a fluffy gnocchi, tagliatelle, spaghetti or pappardelle—then choose their sauce. There’s a straightforward tomato basil, a spicy Arrabbiata, a rich porcini cream, pesto or the classic Bolognese. Burrata can be added for an additional $5.99.
There are also entrees, like meat lasagna, eggplant Parmigiana, Chicken Milanese or roasted wild salmon. There are salads, cold plates like Bresaola Carpaccio, sandwiches and desserts, like tiramisu, cookies and pies, and, of course, gelato. The restaurant also offers beer and wine, and most seating is outdoors on attractive covered patios.
Pasta Sisters Culver City, and Giorgia Sinatra. | Photos by Lisa Jennings.
That location has become a flagship as the family considers next steps for growth, including possible franchising.
Pasta Sisters recently opened a ghost kitchen outlet in Costa Mesa, California, south of Los Angeles. That’s one possibility for growth.
The family also opened a central kitchen where pastas and sauces can be made and delivered fresh (or flash frozen) to units.
Pasta Sisters pastas and sauces are now sold in some local markets, too, and a potentially large CPG contract is in the works—Giorgia doesn’t want to say yet which retailer is involved.
Ideally, Giorgia said they would love to find an investor or family-run operator who could help them get to the next level without losing the culture that makes Pasta Sisters unique.
There are challenges to work out.
For Paola, who is still cooking behind the scenes, the key is maintaining the quality of the recipes that literally came from Paola’s mother (Giorgia’s grandmother).
Pasta Sisters imports flour from Italy, along with olive oil and other ingredients, and the potential of 15% tariffs on European imports could be a hurdle ahead.
Labor costs have also skyrocketed. As a result, that stunning tower of pasta Bolognese has risen in price from $8 to $18 over the past decade. (“Every $1 increase has been a punch in the stomach,” said Giorgia.)
And, though it’s still a relatively good value in Los Angeles, it has been a rough year for consumers here. Labor strikes have stalled production in the entertainment industry. Wildfires ravaged the city in January. And immigration raids have dampened restaurant sales in recent months.
“It has been quite a challenging year. A few years, to be honest,” said Giorgia. “[Among] Other restaurant people, everyone is just very tired and frustrated.”
Still, Pasta Sisters traffic has been steady. Off-premise channels remain solid—in fact that helped the brand survive the pandemic. “We closed the doors for the shutdown, but the kitchen never stopped,” said Giorgia.
The family has also approached the business with what Giorgia calls a “very Italian mindset,” which is not to take on debt. In Italy, she said, debt just isn’t a thing, like it is in America. People don’t really use credit cards, she said.
“We learned how to grow when we needed to grow,” said Giorgia.
Now the Da Re/Sinatra family is considering their options. Whichever direction they take the brand, they will go together.
“I feel like we made it just because we were a family business,” she said. “If we were not family, if we were just business partners, probably we wouldn’t have made it.”
Lisa Jennings is a veteran restaurant industry reporter and editor who covers the fast-casual sector, independent restaurants and emerging chain concepts.
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