Anthony Scotto has left a promising career at BlackRock to help build his family-owned restaurant business, Pelato, into a three-city operation employing 300 people.
The Brooklyn-style Italian restaurant group began with one Nashville venue and expects to serve about 450,000 guests this year. It is also planning to open two further restaurants in 2027.
Scotto, 30, said the expansion had come at a personal cost. He works seven days a week, rarely takes holidays and carries responsibility for hundreds of employees.
“I’ve never worked harder in my life,” he said. “I’ve never been more stressed on a day-to-day in my life.”
From BlackRock to Pelato
Finance had once appeared to be Scotto’s long-term future. His family’s Manhattan restaurant, Fresco by Scotto, was on the same East 52nd Street block as BlackRock’s former headquarters, and he grew up seeing the company’s name and its employees regularly visiting the restaurant.
By the age of 12, he had decided he wanted to work in finance and real estate. As a teenager, he took unpaid internships with commercial property brokerages, cold-called potential clients and gained his real estate licence at 18.
After attending Northeastern University, where he made use of its co-operative work programme, Scotto secured two internships with BlackRock’s real estate team. He joined the company full-time after graduating, working on property sourcing, underwriting, acquisitions and sales.
He was later promoted to associate and became an assistant portfolio manager for one of the team’s largest funds. Scotto described landing the role as particularly significant because he was the first member of his family to graduate from university and enter corporate America.
“I knew that I had a career path that people would literally die to get,” he said. “I fought so hard to get to exactly that position.”
But the Covid-19 pandemic changed the direction of his career. Fresco closed for an extended period, cutting off the immediate family’s main source of income, and the Scottos began looking towards Nashville, where Scotto’s sister was studying.
While continuing to work remotely for BlackRock, Scotto helped his parents establish Luogo, a Nashville restaurant based on Fresco. He negotiated the lease, prepared financial projections and dealt with legal and accounting arrangements before handing over the day-to-day running of the business to his father.
When BlackRock required employees to return to New York, Scotto had to choose between going back to the career he had spent years building and staying in Nashville to work with his family.
A vacant restaurant site in the Germantown neighbourhood helped settle the question. Scotto had found the property while viewing locations with a real estate broker and became interested after learning that the previous tenant had fallen four months behind on rent.
Although the former mop-and-broom factory had housed five restaurants in a decade, Scotto believed the site offered the right opportunity. Pelato was established within three weeks.
Pelato’s rapid growth
Scotto opened Pelato with his mother, Theresa, in September 2023. Unlike Luogo, it was a new concept rather than a version of the family’s existing restaurant.
The opening months were difficult. The restaurant initially used QR-code ordering instead of conventional table service, a decision Scotto soon concluded was not working. The team then changed the welcome, service and menu through what he described as hundreds of small adjustments.
Pelato reached break-even in its third month, according to figures supplied by the company. Business then accelerated sharply in January, despite warnings that the month could prove fatal for the restaurant.
It went on to become one of Nashville’s most-booked restaurants, with guests including Morgan Wallen, Lainey Wilson, Sabrina Carpenter, Gwen Stefani, Blake Shelton and Billy Joel.
Revenue at the original Nashville site rose 76 per cent between its first and second full years, followed by a further 34 per cent increase. The company is forecasting growth of another 10 per cent this year.
The newer restaurants in Franklin, a Nashville suburb, and Charleston, South Carolina, both reached break-even in their first months. Pelato said none of its three locations had recorded an unprofitable month since stabilising.
Scotto still uses his BlackRock experience when choosing sites, negotiating leases and building financial models, but said about 95 per cent of his time is now spent in the restaurants.
He personally trains Pelato’s hosts, whom he regards as the most important employees at the front of house. The training focuses on the financial workings of the dining room and keeping tables occupied, even during the busiest evenings.
“They make me more money than any manager or any server ever could,” he said.
Scotto said the family’s ownership structure allowed it to make decisions without waiting for outside approval, while also bearing direct responsibility for the results.
“If we fail, it’s because of us, and if we do well, it’s because of us,” he said.
The family hopes to open two restaurants a year for the next three years. Scotto also has a personal ambition waiting for a quieter period: travelling to the Italian island of Ischia with a handwritten family address and knocking on the door.
“Maybe we’ll find the month in between,” he said. “I’ll just become an old Italian farmer for a month. We’ll see.”
