When Martino Canelo moved to the United States from Peru in 1986, he started working in an Italian restaurant to support himself while he took English classes. He started as a bus boy and worked his way up the ranks to be a waiter, a bartender, then a cook.Canelo fell in love with the cuisine and, after working in Italian restaurants in several cities, wanted to open his own.
“What I know most is Italian cuisine, so I decided on an Italian restaurant,” Canelo said. At the time, he lived in Charlotte, N.C., where he saw many small businesses last less than a year. Then, he visited some of his relatives in Athens and saw that the business climate here was very different.
