On the occasion of Ferragosto celebrations at Casa Barbera, we met the representative of Italian coffee in Los Angeles, Matteo Pasquini, and learned about his family business while enjoying a delicious cappuccino.
Let’s start from the beginning…
In 1955 my father came to the United States and opened his own business “Moka D’Oro”, as there were no cafés in Los Angeles at that time. But it was very hard to import coffee from Italy, and he had few customers, so he closed it and went to work as a manufacturer of military parts.
He made another attempt in 1957 by selling espresso machines imported from Italy, and two years later he established a new espresso bar on Sunset Strip called “Via Veneto”, which became a meeting point for Hollywood celebrities. In the early ‘60s, when the area started to change, he sold the place and took us on our first family trip to Italy for about nine months.
When we came back, Bullocks Department Store offered him to take part in the “Italian Week” with an espresso cart in Downtown: the initiative was so successful that he was given a permanent spot from 1959 to 1984.
With four cafés owned in Los Angeles, my father also reopened the selling business, using his technical skills to modify and even build his own espresso machines named after my grandmother Livia. The first residential cappuccino machine ever manufactured in the US was a Pasquini.
What do you think is the difference between Pasquini and big coffeehouse chains?
Our coffee is original, it tastes Italian. In Italy you can find a good coffee almost everywhere, which means that it isn’t difficult to make, but you need to know how it tastes.
Most famous coffeehouses do an amazing marketing job…without knowing what coffee is! Pasquini just can’t market itself out of a paper bag. We commit to have the best product (through our in-house roasting facility), the best machines, and the best customer service. Our technicians who came from other companies may have experience working on espresso machines, but with us they also learn about coffee.
What are Pasquini’s future goals?
We are growing. Just like in Hollywood in the ‘70s and ‘80s, today we take part as sponsors in special events involving both the Italian-American and local community. We provide restaurants, hotels and institutions (J.P.Getty Museum, Disneyland) with our coffee, high-tech machines and components, and the best technicians in the country. Now we have focused on the California, Arizona and Nevada markets, leaving other States to our partner Cimbali’s distributors.
Proud of our Italian origins, Pasquini still remains an American company, and we know how important customer service is. I just make and serve a real Italian espresso or cappuccino, and let people decide whether they like it or not. Sometimes it is the best they have ever had, and when my customers can taste it and understand the difference, then my mission is accomplished.
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