Tag Archives: Lissa Druss Christman

  It’s hard to grow a family business growing without completely transforming it, but third-generation meat packing exec Angelo Brooks Carmignani is keeping 75-year-old Randolph Packing Co. in a strong growth mode by sticking to one simple ingredient, loyal employees. Randolph was started in 1928 by Angelo Carmignani, an immigrant from Lucca who came to the United States with a skill for making Italian sausage, and scraped up enough money to start a business that played to his strengths. “Everything was based around the family,” says the 43-year Brooks, who currently served vice president at Randolph. “And my grandfather had …

Thanks to a credit card company, a husband-and-wife team in Lincolnshire is living a dream. In 1995, Antonella Granito was contacted by her credit card company. She had one month to use her airline points or she was going to lose them. Granito decided to take a two-week trip to Italy to visit her father’s family. It was on this trip to Campagna, Salerno, that she met her future husband, Nunzio Bottiglieri. “It was love at first sight,” says Granito. “After a two-week vacation, I came back to Chicago, took a leave of absence from my job with the Department …

There are very few shops in the Chicago area where you can buy a live, three-foot shark. Then again, there are very few shops where the owner can definitively say, “This stuff is like a drug. Once customers are hooked, they are in my store every day.” The drug Mario Rubino is talking about is saltwater fish, and the store he’s referring to is Aquatica in Tinley Park. Ten years ago, Rubino took a leap of faith and pursued his passion. “My family has a grocery store, Rubino’s Italian Imports in Tinley Park, and I used to work there with …

“I was putting siding on a house and I took a piece of plywood and put my phone number on it, and that was that!” So says Bill Conforti of 773-929-9275, the telephone number that has connected homeowners with Siding-1 Windows-1 Exteriors for more than a quarter of a century. Conforti launched the company and still maintains a small roll in it. But he’s now concentrating most of his energies on Cobblestone Development Inc., a commercial and residential remodeling company he formed 20 years ago. Conforti has covered a lot of ground in the intervening years, but it was those …

It’s 8:30 on a Thursday morning, and the ageless tables are already filled with regulars. Walking into this Oak Park diner, you see a distinguished man with papers spread out around him. He’s talking to a man standing over the table as if the guest were paying homage. A handshake accompanies a warm smile while the next person waits to say hello. That person would be this journalist. “Hi, Gabe,” I say with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Hey, Lis,” Gabe Caporale says. “How’s ma?” Gabriel James Caporale’s grandparents emigrated from Italy in the 1900s. His parents, …

We’ve all heard it said that, to succeed in business, “It’s not what you know, but who you know.” For marketing maverick and public relations pro Bernie DiMeo, it’s a combination of the two. DiMeo has the pleasure of running not one, but three, businesses right now. Bernie DiMeo Communications is a public relations firm, Rocco Shirts sells novelty custom-made apparel on-line while Hot Sports Grills sells football and baseball shaped charcoal grills. Why three different businesses? It stems from an entrepreneurial gene shared by his forebears. DiMeo grew up in a Rogers Park two-flat in an Italian household that …

Italians cannot live without their wine. It doesn’t matter if it’s red, white or prosecco, vino holds a place of honor at our table, whether we’re eating at home or dining out. According to the Wine Institute, more than 26 million bottles of wine are produced annually throughout the world. There’s nothing better than sitting down to dinner at a restaurant and being able to order your favorite bottle of wine. But how do restaurant owners and their wine buyers find that special bottle for their customers? Now, they can turn to Wine2Find.com. Launched earlier this year, Wine2Find.com has accomplished …