A not-so-funny thing happened to chef Paul Verica when he took his final research trip to Italy before opening his first Italian restaurant last year. Traveling through Genoa with his partner and fiancée, Jane Tramontana M.D., with plans to head north to Milan, news of the pandemic’s spread in Italy became grimmer and grimmer.

Tramontana, a pulmonary doctor, realized that the situation was going to get worse, so they curtailed the trip and headed back to their hometown Charlotte, North Carolina as quickly as possible.