Restaurants in Dunedin come and go but a few have withstood the competition and changing economic times. In the first of this series Elspeth McLean talks to the Gianone family about their popular eatery Etrusco.
It was "a hell of a gamble", Meegan Gianone says with characteristic directness.
When she and husband Federico (Fred) and their young sons, Rion (7) and Zane (5), crossed the threshold as new owners of Etrusco restaurant in Moray Pl, Dunedin, in December 1994 they had "$10 in the world between us".
The restaurant - which is still going strong 17 years later, with all members of the family now involved - "had to work", she said.
The family had been living in Alexandra, where Mr Gianone, an industrial electrician, had been working at the Clyde dam, while she had been mainly occupied raising their boys.
When a friend suggested the Gianones would be "fantastic" for the recently developed restaurant in the Savoy building, they went to have a look and became determined to give it a go.
But no-one was keen to put up enough money - "we searched high and low for people to back us", but they were considered high risk.
In the end, it was only the owners of the business agreeing to leave some money in that clinched the deal.
Mrs Gianone (nee Cronin), who was originally from Alexandra, insists the couple are nothing special.
But press her on why it has worked so well for so long and she refers to their work ethic, the way the family members complement each other in the business and their focus on consistency and keeping the customers happy.
It was more good luck than good management they struck the right note. When people went into business they usually had business plans - "we had none of that, but from that first day in December '94 to this we have been only concerned about the customer".
And then there is the "f" word to which the couple refer to frequently - family - but more about that later.
While neither had run a business before, Mrs Gianone, who does the books and the hiring of the staff, did have experience in a Ministry of Works office as a staff clerk, which proved valuable.
And they were lucky to inherit good staff.
While these days they are used to serving hundreds of diners in an evening, in the early days numbers could be as low as 11 some nights.
The Gianones are both effusive about the huge local support they have received.
Mr Gianone, the son of Italian parents, was 2 when they moved to Melbourne as refugees after World War 2.
His father, who had been a dentist in Italy, was 47. In post-war Australia, with no English, he was unable to work in that field again. Instead, he went to work as a labourer, doing 12-hour shifts.
"It was extremely tough for them. There was a huge cultural gap between the typical Aussie and the Italians."
When he was forced to take early retirement, his son's apprentice wages were used to support his parents and his younger sister.
"I used to hand my pay packet over to Mum and she used to give me spending money."
Mr Gianone learnt to cook from his mother - a " fantastic cook".
Initially, it was not easy for her to buy the ingredients she wanted in Australia. The cuts of meat she sought, for instance, were not familiar to Australian butchers.
Mr Gianone remembers her buying bread delivered three days a week from an Italian bakery because they could not eat the white, sliced, doughy Australian bread.
He is passionate about the place of food as part of people's being, their culture and tradition.
He spoke of respecting his wife's traditions, by uncharacteristically cooking an Irish stew for her when she requested that one birthday.
However, when he first came to New Zealand after the couple's whirlwind courtship in Melbourne in 1982, his family used to send him " Red Cross" parcels of favourite Italian foods.
Extra-virgin olive oil was not available - "you could get oil from the chemist for earache".
The spaghetti available here was not made with durum wheat and would just "fall to pieces" when cooked. Cans of tuna in oil were also not available.
"I used to make a lot of my own stuff." This included making his own sausages and marinating his own meat.
Thirty years ago, marinating meat was not something generally done in New Zealand.
Mr Gianone recalls making lasagne for fellow workers on the Clyde dam site. While he got used to a bit of ribbing about his food, they did not waste time polishing off the lasagne.
When the couple took on the restaurant, his family sent his sister over to check out what he was doing - "they thought I was mad".
She was able to report that everything was fine. The "biggest tragedy" was that neither of the couple's mothers lived to see the success they made of the restaurant.
"I am sure they would have been so proud of us."
Barrister Anita Chan, who suggests she and her husband might be the restaurant's most regular customers, said the restaurant was in a great location, was not too formal, and the food was consistent and reasonably priced.
The Gianones were "superlative hosts" who picked staff with personality and, no matter when she went, there was "always a family member there to look after you".
They made the effort to get to know their customers and their success was "very much down to the personal touch". They had everything "just right".
Ask the couple how difficult it is working in a seven-day-a-week business as a family and they refer to the limited time off together, although they hope that might change now both sons also have shares in the business.
They have had few holidays in their time at the restaurant and Mrs Gianone said in the "first 10 years, we didn't move".
However, she would not trade the lifestyle - "I can't imagine life without here".
Mrs Gianone said "the pluses" of working with family members were the trust and honesty. "Everyone can speak to each other. You don't have to dance around each other."
It was like any relationship, however. The big things were often easier to sort out than the niggly things like someone leaving the top off the toothpaste.
She said it was a pleasant surprise when both sons were interested in joining the business. The demands of the restaurant when the boys were young meant they had to do things for themselves that other children might not, such as sew their own buttons on their school shirts.
The "up side" of their upbringing was that they had good self esteem and confidence and were not afraid of anything, she said.
"I'm really proud of them."
They had always been "bloody tight" as a family - "always have been, always will be".
She called on her husband to explain how he illustrated the significance of family togetherness to their sons. Mr Gianone said when he and his sister fought, his father told him a story about how one person could break a single stick, but put several sticks together and they were unbreakable.
It was to show how individually, people could be broken, but if they stuck together as siblings, as family, that was not possible.
Aptly, instead of telling his sons about sticks breaking, he had given it some special restaurant flair - using packets of spaghetti. What else?
While you could snap the contents of one packet of spaghetti readily enough, put two together and "you've got no hope", he said.
