How Bobby Stuckey Transformed a Learning Disability Into Hospitality Excellence at Frasca

Anthony Codispoti (00:00)
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast, where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Codaspoti and today’s guest is Bobby Stuckey. He is the founder and partner of Frasca Hospitality Group, a company dedicated to delivering warm and thoughtful hospitality through restaurants like Frasca Food and Wine, Pizzeria Alberico, Tavernetta, and Sunday Vinyl.

Bobby (00:26)
Thank

Anthony Codispoti (00:29)
Their goal is to make people feel welcomed by offering genuine service, flavorful cuisine, and curated wines and spirit lists. Bobby’s leadership has helped shape this mission across all their locations, ensuring guests receive attentive care and culinary experience. Under his guidance, Froska Hospitality Group has earned respect for its innovative approach to hospitality. Bobby has been recognized with two James Beer Foundation Awards, Outstanding Service and Outstanding Wine Service.

Before founding Frasca, he worked as a sommelier at the French Laundry and the Little Nell, gaining hands-on experience in fine dining. He has become a trusted voice in the industry, shaping what top tier hospitality looks like today. Now, before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Ad Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. Imagine.

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All right, back to our guest today, Bobby Suckey from Fresco Hospitality Group. Thanks for making the time to share your story today.

Bobby (02:04)
Anthony, thanks for spending some time with me.

Anthony Codispoti (02:07)
So Bobby, you are known as someone that really places a lot of emphasis on the larger importance and the overall beauty of the restaurant industry. But take us back to the beginning for you. How did your journey in the restaurant industry first start?

Bobby (02:24)
I started as a bus person in 1983. was, I’ll be really frank, I was a really, it’s not that I didn’t want to be a good student. I just really struggled. I’m in my mid fifties and I got, I didn’t get diagnosed to be dyslexic until I was literally in college. So my grade school, middle school, high school years, those, that was a tough time for me. And

I found the restaurant industry and it was one of the few places where I got positive reinforcement outside of the home. had really loving parents, great family, but maybe didn’t get the greatest positive reinforcement at school. And the restaurant industry as a bus person, as a kid, I was getting that positive reinforcement and it really left me under the tent per se.

Anthony Codispoti (03:23)
What does that mean under the 10th?

Bobby (03:24)
Under the tent means like everyone’s, not everyone, some tents, they don’t invite people. I was lucky enough to the hospitality industry invites everybody under the tent, not just me. If you’re new to the country and you don’t speak the language, if you’ve gotten fired from another job, the restaurant industry is there for you. If God forbid you made a mistake and you were incarcerated.

the restaurant industry is there for you. I was one of those people that was allowed under the tent to really thrive.

Anthony Codispoti (04:00)
Because up until that point, you felt like you’d been left out of lot of tents because of your undiagnosed dyslexia. School was really hard for you. And there was probably people like, come on, Bobby, why don’t you get this? This is basic stuff. Like, how many times do we have to tell you, right?

Bobby (04:15)
Yes. was the story of my learning.

Anthony Codispoti (04:16)
Yeah. And that has to be really demoralizing

as a young kid who’s trying to just figure things out. Yeah. ⁓ and so you started as a bus person, you worked your way up, before you started Fresca, you had worked at some really iconic establishments like the French laundry and the little now, what were some of the pivotal lessons from those early experiences that still guide the way you lead Fresca today?

Bobby (04:21)
Yes.

I think both Little Nell and the French Wanderer, the leadership teams there were both really formative for me. I’ll start with the Little Nell because that was first. Eric Calderon, who was the general manager, and Connie Thornberg, the food and beverage director at that time, were that perfect nexus of they had a lot of leadership, they had a lot of experience, but they were really… ⁓

thoughtful leaders. really, not just with me, with everyone, pulled us into the performance that we needed to be able to do. They did a really great job at that. And then, you know, moving on to the French Laundry ⁓ in 25 years ago, ⁓ that was just such an exciting time to be there. And Thomas Keller and his ⁓ partner, Laura Cunningham, were just such great leaders and really

gave me a set of tools that I still use every day. I use things from both those experiences all the time.

Anthony Codispoti (05:48)
How did the opportunity to open your first restaurant come about?

Bobby (05:55)
⁓ it was more, not really an opportunity. was a necessity. ⁓ my wife’s mother passed away when we were at the French laundry and we left there to move here to open Frasca food and wine 21 years ago to be close to my wife’s father. He was living in Golden. We’re actually sitting right now. I’m in the

the private dining room of Pizzeria Alberico, which is named after my wife’s family. ⁓ So that’s next door to Frasca. So we really came to Boulder to be close to my father-in-law. ⁓ And there weren’t a lot of jobs for what I did 21 years ago in Boulder. There weren’t a lot of wine positions, high-end restaurants that I could go work at. So I had to…

do the next obvious thing and open a restaurant because that gave me a place to work.

Anthony Codispoti (06:58)
Well, let’s be fair. That’s not the next obvious thing. Like starting a business is really hard. Starting a restaurant is even harder. Certainly would have been easier to go find employment somewhere else, but I think there was something that sort of infected you in your blood about the business by that point.

Bobby (07:15)
100%. I am so passionate about the restaurant industry. I feel very lucky for Oscar. Our group has been around for 21 years and I still get super excited, fired up to be on the floor every night.

Anthony Codispoti (07:31)
And I want to hear more about the different restaurant concepts that you have, but I want to come back to something we were just touching on. I can tell that you’ve got really strong feelings about kind of the larger importance of the restaurant industry and its place in overall society. Can you say more about that?

Bobby (07:49)
Yeah, I I look at the restaurant industry as this beautiful sleeping giant sitting under all of society’s nose without anyone paying attention.

is though it is very exciting, but most people don’t realize this, then it is the biggest employer for private sector other than healthcare in North America.

Anthony Codispoti (08:19)
I didn’t think I realized that.

Bobby (08:21)
It’s 12 times the size of the airline industry. It dwarfs the airline industry.

Anthony Codispoti (08:28)
So you’re saying there’s a lot of employment opportunities here.

Bobby (08:31)
lot of employment, a lot of chances for people of all walks of life to be an entrepreneur. And then what also is so special about the restaurant industry, look at, think of it as your like eighth grade biology class. The restaurant is the core. What you would learn in eighth grade is the cornerstone species of the ecosystem. We’re the cornerstone species of the U S economic system.

Because not only are we this huge employer, the ripple effect of our industry affects when things are going well, so many things positively. No other industry has the levers to positively impact the economy like us. It just isn’t a fact of that.

Anthony Codispoti (09:27)
And are you saying that’s because of the number of people that you employ? And so when the restaurant industry is good, when you’re able to employ more people, now those people have funds to go and spend other places in the economy. that, am I connecting the dots correctly here?

Bobby (09:43)
Little bit, but also the cornerstone species theories. Farmers can sell to us. Linen companies are selling to us. We take so much things to open our doors every day, that it brings so many people up.

Anthony Codispoti (10:01)
All the other businesses that you guys buy from helps to turn that flywheel of the economy as well. Yeah.

Bobby (10:08)
Yeah.

You know, when we were dealing with the pandemic across the United States five years ago, we saw it immediately. You saw pork farmers could not butcher pork because the pork industry needed us open.

Even though everyone is at home eating, people eat differently when they go to the grocery store than their diner. And I heard something when I was, cause I was very active during the pandemic, helping the independent restaurant coalition. I was on phone with congressmen and senators across the United States. And you would hear from a pork farmer in Iowa talk about, Hey,

A little diner doing breakfast seven days a week goes through a lot more bacon than a grocery store.

Anthony Codispoti (11:07)
That’s interesting.

Bobby (11:10)
So there.

Anthony Codispoti (11:10)
we’re more

likely to consume bacon if we go to a restaurant.

Bobby (11:13)
Yeah. Or meat, so many other things, tomatoes, lettuces, all those things. ⁓ So it really turbo charges the industry when we’re healthy.

Anthony Codispoti (11:32)
That makes a lot of sense. And I also want to go back to what you were saying about ⁓ your undiagnosed dyslexia. And I’m curious if you found this to be true for you, because I’ve talked with a number of other business leaders, founders that have been on a similar path, ⁓ undiagnosed dyslexia or learning disability, and they really struggled in school.

their brains didn’t work in sort of the traditional sense. so they had to, whether consciously or not, figure out other ways to sort of develop their brains and other skills to develop so that they could pursue their own form of success in life. a lot of those folks now look back on those really hard and challenging times with a sense of gratitude because now they have skills and can do things in ways that other people can’t.

Does any of this ring true for you?

Bobby (12:29)
⁓ 100%. I mean, I’ll be 56 in September. So I am firmly of that Generation X group that we didn’t really understand learning disabilities like we do now. And I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, which might’ve been academically, maybe a little bit even more behind in that time period. Nothing against it, just a fact of life. And so it wasn’t…

I just didn’t fit into how we learned. If I didn’t fit into the bell curve properly, maybe I was over to one side or the other side too much, but mother nature is interesting. She will give all any of us a different set of skill sets. If you don’t have the, the, the normal skill sets. So I find that my, had

a different form of how I remembered things. Maybe I was forced to memorize more because reading and writing were so hard. So that gave me a skillset that I use every day. ⁓ It allowed me to see things differently. And the most important thing I think it gave me is I had to work so hard at such a young age to be

below average or average, that my work ethic, I have to be careful with my coworkers, that my work ethic tolerance is just different than theirs. And it’s not that I’m better or they’re not better. It’s that my work ethic became so robust from trying just to be average.

that when you find yourself in a profession that you like and that you’re doing well with, and you already have that work ethic, it’s like turbocharged. So there’s a lot of times where maybe my team’s like, hey, Bobby, pump the brakes.

Anthony Codispoti (14:39)
Slow it down, buddy. Slow it down. No, I get that. And I have a lot of respect for that. Like you said, you had to work extra hard just to be average or even below average at the time. So now you’ve found your groove. You found an area that you can really excel in. But now you can’t turn that dial back very easily. And so you’re supercharged. I know that the Frasca Hospitality Group, the name is inspired by the

kind of the informal frasca of northeastern Italy. Can you share the story behind that tradition and how it influences your approach to restaurants?

Bobby (15:14)
Yeah.

Yeah. So our part of Italy that Frasca has come from is a part of Italy called Friuli Venezia Giulia. So that is the part of Italy next to modern day Slovenia and the Southern border of modern day Austria. But up until 1917, it was part of Austria and these wine country restaurants.

which were denoted by the branch at the end of the driveway or over the door or next to the garage, that denoted a Frasca, which was this casual eatery for the neighborhood to come in to get maybe one or two simple plates, a glass of Tokai Freilano or Pinot Bianco and get on with their day. And that was our inspiration was that region of Italy, Friuli Venezia Giulia.

So if you’re inspired by Friuli and you’re in Boulder, Colorado, what is the best name you could have would be a Froska.

Anthony Codispoti (16:21)
And so why was that your inspiration? Had you spent some time traveling there?

Bobby (16:25)
I had before we opened for sure, but when I was studying to become a master simile a 30 years ago, I would study how I studied for theory for the master simile. I would study about wine, read the wine, the re the region, the cuisine, the culture of any given region. And so I did that with everything, Spain, Burgundy, all sauce, champagne, whatever Italy, of course.

And when I was reading about Friuli, I don’t know why, but there was this amazing poll to learn more about that region. And I feel so lucky because the region’s given me so much. It’s given my guests so much. It’s given my employees so much. That region, I think we lucked out, Lachlan, Dinette and I, finding that region because

I think if we had any other region that we fell in love with, don’t know if it would have been as reciprocal.

Anthony Codispoti (17:28)
something about it really spoke to you and you guys have had a lot of really good momentum from your early success. I’ve never had the pleasure of being in one of your restaurants. Kind of paint a picture for us. What is the customer experience like?

Bobby (17:31)
Yeah.

Well, you’re as a customer, you’re entering one of our homes. like last night I worked at Tavernetta, but I walked over into Sunday Vinyl and helped out over there for a moment. And really everybody on the team.

hypothetically should be contributing to making that guest feel warm and invited. And so you, it’s not uncommon to have a guest be finishing their plate of pasta and it’d be me to clear their plate. And that’s normal. As I said earlier, I started bussing tables and night, you know, in the early eighties and I’m still bussing tables.

So maybe I’m someone who really sticks in my lane, but because of me sticking in my lane of bus and tables, it encourages the whole team to everyone contribute the same way.

Anthony Codispoti (18:44)
gonna say, Bobby, you’ve got to be busy enough that you got more things to do than bus a table. Like, why is that on your to do list?

Bobby (18:54)
I wouldn’t see it any other way, Anthony. mean, that’s, if I’m gonna be part of service with that team that night, like tonight I’m at Froska, tomorrow night I’m at Pizzeria Albrico, Friday night I’m at Osteria Albrico, I circle back again to Froska on Saturday night. If I’m with that team that night, I have to be a contributor equally as every team member, no matter where they are in the process.

Anthony Codispoti (19:23)
It’s like wherever the team needs you, wherever the client, wherever the guests need you, that’s where you’re showing up. There’s leadership by example, right? So I want to talk about the James Beard awards. And let’s assume for a moment that somebody is listening and they don’t know who James Beard is. They don’t understand the significance of the awards. Before we talk about the awards that you won, tell us why these awards are so important.

Bobby (19:31)
Yes. Yes.

Well, we have a really beautiful industry and, ⁓ but a lot, a lot of light has shined on our industry and the James Bredeard foundation has been one of the great stalwarts of showing this beautiful industry to mainstream America and not through a reality television show, not through a contest, but as

a award ceremony and a mentorship. They do a lot of mentorship to restaurant tours. ⁓ But their awards are like our Oscars and it really opens up mainstream America to understand what’s going on in the industry.

Anthony Codispoti (20:42)
So tell us about the two, because you got not one, but two of these James Beard awards. One for outstanding service, another for outstanding wine service. What do these mean to you?

Bobby (20:52)
Well, yeah, I’m embarrassed

to say this. We actually got our, a one this June for outstanding restaurant in the country. So there’s three. I shouldn’t say that, but so yeah, that was an emotional night. so we’ve got three. So outstanding wine service is really based on Frosk. That was awarded to Froska for building a wine culture for the community.

Anthony Codispoti (21:02)
my gosh. That’s awesome.

Bobby (21:22)
⁓ that was done 100 % by the great team members, ⁓ past and present that have worked so hard over the 21 years. ⁓ you know, past have been the Nate Reddies, the, the, the grant riddles, the Matt Mathers, ⁓ present would be the Jeremy Schwartz, the Sean Perez, ⁓ the Zach. And of course our, our corporate wine.

director for the company, our fearless leader, Carlin Carr. They really have done so much. And then the hospitality award, which used to be called the Outstanding Service Award, we won that in 2019. And that was really beautiful for the team because it shined a light on that it’s about the whole team taking care of the guests.

I love that they changed the name to the outstanding hospitality award. I think it’s really important. Service is what you do to someone. Hospitality is how you make someone feel. ⁓ That actually, my speech in 2019 was I thanked the foundation and I asked, can we change the name? So.

Anthony Codispoti (22:32)
Interesting.

right on stage as part of your acceptance speech.

Bobby (22:47)
Yes, I did. I didn’t write a speech. So that’s what came out. was like all motion,

but ⁓ it was nice that they listened to my speech and they changed it. I thought it was really for the better because hospitality doesn’t just have to be service captains and maitre d’s and simile’s hospitality can be done by a chef, by a dishwasher, by ⁓ a kitchen person, we a front of the house person.

All of us can participate.

Anthony Codispoti (23:17)
What does that look like though? And when they’re trying to give out, you know, determine who gets this award, like how are you measuring that? What does over the top hospitality look like?

Bobby (23:27)
I think they do it by checking in with peers. And I mean, I’ve never been part of the awards process, but I think they are checking in on these restaurants to see what they’re doing in that sense. And then this year’s award was outstanding restaurant. was something we had been nominated for a few years ago, but not recently. We got nominated this year and I told the whole team that is the win, be nominated.

one of five restaurants, four restaurants in the country for outstanding restaurant. That’s the win. Let’s not look at anything else. And then with each day getting closer to the awards.

Sergey, our general manager ⁓ at Froska, I think would ask me every day, okay, what do you think our odds are? And I said, Sergey, would you quit it? We’ve already won. And then Jay, our lead bartender would say, hey Bobby, what do you think our odds are? And then Jeremy Schwartz, our lead simile would ask, what are our odds?

our chef Ian, chef Sonny, Kelvin, the whole team were like, do you think we have a shot at it? And I was like, guys, everyone stop. That’s not the important thing. Yes, we are one of the finalists. Man, they were persistent. And they kept needling me and I said, I don’t want to think about that.

Anthony Codispoti (24:51)
We’re winners already! We’re one of the five finalists, yeah!

and then you guys ended up winning.

Bobby (25:06)
And then we went to the awards as a team. We did not get to have Chef Ian with us because he had a bigger responsibility. He and his wife had just had their firstborn child. So he didn’t get to go, but he had a lot more important things going on. And we went to the awards and we sat there. It’s the second to last awards. So sit there for four and a half hours stressing out and then it happened. So yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (25:36)
And tell me about the emotion that came up in the moment that it was announced.

Bobby (25:40)
⁓ it was so overwhelming. I think if you look at my Instagram, ⁓ profile, one of the posts down there a little bit is when it happens. someone had gotten on film from me getting my team on stage, age, ⁓ me addressing the room. It was so emotional. I think we’re still emotional about it. Three months later.

Anthony Codispoti (26:08)
So how many, mean, where do I wanna go with this? Like are there different categories for best restaurant or is it just best restaurant overall? It’s like best Italian restaurant, best French restaurant.

Bobby (26:20)
Well, it’s just outstanding restaurant. There’s other categories for other disciplines. Like there’s pastry, there’s wine service, there’s best. You got one. That’s it.

Anthony Codispoti (26:29)
But for restaurants, you guys got it. Number one, for

2025. I mean, that’s something else. And so what does that do for business? You guys see an increase in reservations, foot traffic, phone calls.

Bobby (26:44)
Yeah, I think you, lot of positive things happen. First of all, I think the community gets excited. Even if they’re not going to come eat with you at your fine dining restaurant. They’re proud in Boulder. They’re proud in Denver metropolitan area. They’re proud in Colorado that that happened. So right there, that’s a real positive. know, Frosk is small. We’re like 18 tables. So yes.

⁓ It increases business, but it can only increase so much because we don’t have many tables, but it fills things out beautifully for sure. But I think the powerful part is what it does to the community. It affects people positively that might not even ever eat it at your restaurant. There’s a pride.

Anthony Codispoti (27:41)
Going back to the early days, how soon after opening your first restaurant did you think, we’re really onto something here? Like, this is established, it’s working, this is going to be successful.

Bobby (27:57)
Um, I still get nervous every day. So I don’t think we’ve ever figured it out. We’re always learning. We’re always the goal posts in the rest of all business, but specifically in the restaurant industry, the goalposts get changed all the time. could be economic crisis. could be a pandemic. could be legislation by your local.

city council or state legislatures, any of these things can change your goalposts. So because our industry, the restaurant industry operates on such tiny margins, we don’t get a chance to breathe a big sigh of, we’ve made it. We constantly live, not just me, all our whole industry.

We constantly live in this very nervous state of, we going to lose it all or is it going to be a great night? Because our industry works on such small margins. I remember my father, Larry, AKA the lizard is what we call him around here. He doesn’t say much, but when he does, he really says things really saliently.

And he was a former, uh, he’s a retired entrepreneur, not in the restaurant business, but he sure does pay close attention to what his son does. And he, he, he, every once in while will send me a nugget of information. during the pandemic, not depending during the last economic crisis in 2008, nine, when all those banks were, were, were, were going under, we had those TARP funds.

You remember those TARP funds where we bailed out the banks. And if you look at those funds, they weren’t allowed to make more than 20 % profit while getting those or something like that. My dad found this bit of information. He goes, I find it ironic that if a business is getting bailed out, they’re not allowed to make more than 20 % profit, but your industry average is 6 % profit. Man, Bobby, you’re in the wrong business.

Anthony Codispoti (30:19)
You should be in the failing bank business,

Bobby (30:21)
Yeah. Like, is that crazy? Like, our industry is so fragile at all times. And that’s what is the magic of the restaurant industry is that the whole industry works like a swan above the water, looking graceful, making everyone think that the restaurant industry is so beautiful and serene and underneath your

The feet are going so fast trying to stay above water. And yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (30:59)
You know, I had the chance to recently read the book Unreasonable Hospitality. I’m sure it’s something you’re familiar with. I’ve had so many of my guests in and outside of the restaurant industry recommend that book. And one of my guests actually sent it to me. So I finally read it. It gave me a little bit of insight into what goes on kind of behind the scenes. I think I’d like to hear from your point of view, Bobby. What kinds of things you guys look

Bobby (31:04)
great reading.

Anthony Codispoti (31:28)
to do on a daily basis to continue to escalate and elevate, that’s probably the better word, elevate that hospitality experience. Some of the examples in the book were just like, man, you’re already delivering a great experience. Why not just sort of keep it there? But like, how do you guys look at that?

Bobby (31:46)
Yeah, well, first of all, Will Videre’s book is amazing. And he’s an amazingly bright, brilliant human being. ⁓ Great guy. If you ever get to meet him, he’s wonderful. His dad’s awesome. His wife’s awesome. Really good group of people there. He’s brilliant. ⁓ I think it depends on the restaurant you’re in, what you’re able to execute.

because each restaurant has a different cadence pattern and whatever. But what we try to do is make sure all the restaurants from the pizzeria to the fine dining and Froska and everything in between is that we’re thinking about the guests. We’re being empathetic. We realize, we try to realize that hospitality is not about us. It’s not about our program.

It’s not about our restaurant. It’s about the guests that’s coming in the door or who’s calling for a reservation. And that’s really hard for us to do in the United States. We invented the selfie. We are about ourselves. We do a lot of great things in the United States. I wouldn’t say the humble craft of hospitality is part of our DNA of a culture. So it’s almost

It’s exhausting for people to embrace in the process and the craft of hospitality because it has to be relentless. It has to be every day. It has to be every moment. It can’t just be about when you turn the light switch on and the guests come in. You gotta be doing it at all times. And that’s really hard. We’re not natural at that.

Anthony Codispoti (33:39)
Can you maybe give a specific example of a way that you elevated hospitality? Because here I’m thinking about it, and I’m outside the industry. What do I know? Like, I go to a restaurant. Like, I want a friendly waiter. I want my food to come in a reasonable amount of time and taste good and be at the right temperature. But beyond that, like, I don’t know that I’m really expecting anything more. Like, what is it that you could do to really wow somebody?

Bobby (34:07)
So last night, got a really great night last night. was working at Tavernetta and there was a gentleman that came in. I hadn’t seen him in 25 years. I used to take care of him 30 years ago at the Little Now. It was such a delight to have him in there. He was in Denver for a business conference and he had ⁓ two young men with him. ⁓

And they were talking about that they were going to go to Rome and Venice in November.

And I’m pouring wine there. They’re not talking to me. They’re talking to themselves. And one person’s like, you go to Italy a lot. Do you have any ideas? said, yeah, here’s my card. If you email me, I’ll be more than happy to help you out with your trip. I get an email this morning. I got done with my morning run. I, one of my emails is from Andrea. One of the guys sitting there yesterday. And I’m like, ⁓

He really is. This is his itinerary. He’s going to Venice for two days, Bologna two days, Rome for three days. And I just took a moment, sent him a list, a couple of restaurants of each. What days they’re closed in case you’re there on a Sunday, Monday, go to this place. Cause Alita Siete in Venice is closed Sunday Mondays, but local is open on Monday, Tuesdays.

Anthony Codispoti (35:33)
The real insider secrets.

Yeah.

Bobby (35:37)
And that wasn’t part of the cost of the roast chicken and the Brunello, but it was just listening.

realizing that someone’s about to do a vacation that’s really important.

Anthony Codispoti (35:52)
Yeah, I like that. I’m curious though, why so many different restaurant concepts? You know, I think about a place like McDonald’s. They came up with a good idea, they refined it, it works really well, so they replicated the heck out of it. Why not do the same thing? You’ve got a great restaurant, just go with that one concept. Wouldn’t it be easier to reproduce that?

Bobby (36:18)
It depends on the restaurant. I mean, we started with Frasca, which is on, you can’t duplicate Frasca. I can’t do it again. Cause it’s not about me. It’s the terroir, like in wine, talk about terroir. The terroir of that space, the employees that make it up, the destination of going to a fine dining restaurant based on Friuli Venezia Giulia.

Anthony Codispoti (36:26)
Why?

Bobby (36:47)
You can’t do many more of those. That’s that that voices its own deal. I’m sitting in Pizzeria Albrecht. We could do a couple more of these for short or Austria Albrecht. We’ve done two Tavernettas, but some things you can do a couple more of.

And some you can’t, and that’s okay. It’s okay that I can’t do another Froska. ⁓ But first, have to use…

Anthony Codispoti (37:18)
I want to understand

why you can’t do another Frasca though. Is it because you feel like you sort of cheapen it by copying it? Is there something about the physical structure that you need that building?

Bobby (37:28)
⁓ everything about it, the

staff that makes it that restaurant, how the guests interact with it. And also the region to be based on Friuli Venezia Giulia, not every community can support a fine dining restaurant based on Friuli. That thing is such an oddity.

It’s its own deal.

Anthony Codispoti (37:54)
What’s

different about the food from that region that

Bobby (37:57)
So

much. Matter of fact, when we first opened, I used to get guests so upset. Cause we’re funny in the United States. My business partner, Lachlan, he lived in Paris, went to culinary school in Paris. He worked in Paris. He doesn’t ride his bike up to Frasca with a baguette and a beret on. He doesn’t like feel Parisian. But an American can go to their 20th anniversary trip.

to Florence for five days and they come home and they’re an Italian expert. That’s just human nature because Italy is so inviting. But what that guest doesn’t realize is not all of Italy is Ribalita in, in Tuscany. Italy is a country that only became unified in the 18 sixties.

So it has many more diverse food types. So when you find a place like, for you, leaving NC Julia, that really we joke about no Americans go to other than our guests and our staff, it takes so much to tell that story. It’s really hard and a lot of guests get freaked out. They’re like,

What is liqueur ofy? What is Chalzone? What is Frico? I just named like three of the most typical dishes in Friuli and they’re exactly and it raises people’s cortisol level.

Anthony Codispoti (39:31)
and I’ve never heard of any of them.

They want their traditional pasta, parmigiano, they want their, yeah.

Bobby (39:43)
Me, they’re experts. went

to Florence on their 20th wedding anniversary. Can’t take that away from them.

Anthony Codispoti (39:50)
Well, and you know, and I can echo some of this. My dad’s from Italy and he came over. Yeah, I know it shocks everybody. ⁓ And you know, I grew up having some of the best homemade Italian food from my grandmother. But as I got older, went to college, know, restaurants, Italian, I discovered cuisine that we had never grown up with. And I was like pesto, I’ve never heard of pesto.

Bobby (39:54)
I would never have guessed with your last name.

Anthony Codispoti (40:16)
⁓ And I’m like, I love this. And where was this growing up? And my grandma’s like, hey, that just wasn’t popular in our region. And so we didn’t know what it was. So I get what you’re saying. But what would people find are the flavors from that region? How would you sort of describe it?

Bobby (40:23)
Never.

So that region

is the Northern part historically of what was the Roman Empire. So the town of Cipdalli, that was kind of like the Northernmost fortress of the Roman Empire. Huge Roman community in Aquileia right on the sea and grotto. So it was the Northern part of that. It’s the Western border of what we now in modern day speak call Eastern Europe.

So Slovenia, above that, you’ve got Austria and Hungary. They call it middle Europe, because they look at it as middle, here in the United States, we call that Eastern Europe. And then we’re the southern part of what was the Austrian empire.

at its peak. So when you’re in Trieste, the port city of Friuli, Venetia, and you stand on the piazza Unita, you can tell that the Austrians put a lot of thought into that piazza of, hey, look, this is your entering our empire. So it was all three of those major cultures with other little cultures.

combining it at all times. And because Trieste was the port city for the whole Austrian empire, they had so many different food products coming through there to go up to Vienna. It just became so diverse. You see things like gnocchi with maybe poppy seeds on it. You might see smoked ricotta versus

like with this smoky, almost meaty smell, but it’s just cheese that has been smoked.

Anthony Codispoti (42:27)
Stay.

Bobby (42:27)
You

might see raw fish preparation, pache crudo done beautifully. So it’s all these things combined.

Anthony Codispoti (42:35)
Love it. I’ve heard you talk about what you call career worthy compensation and obviously a positive work culture. Can you share some examples of how that approach benefits not only your team members, but your guests as well?

Bobby (42:53)
Yeah, when you have an organization.

that can compensate properly and add benefits. And I have a whole bent on that because societally, I really think something’s gone a little weird. ⁓ I think it’s great when Obama came up with Obamacare and they came up with the arbitrary number of 26 is when you get off your parents’ insurance. But what I don’t think they realized is now you have a 25 year old

which is solidly an adult has never thought about insurance yet. That is a bit of a, that’s a chink in the armor of that whole idea. I don’t think they’ve thought that through until now as someone who has employees, a lot of young people, but when you are an organization that adds has a matching 401k fully vested after one year, like we do, and we’ve had that for close to two decades.

an insurance program for our staff. Then you have an opportunity for people to have real careers in our industry. And it doesn’t matter where they come from. You can come from Nepal. You can come from Des Moines, Iowa. You can come from Venezuela. Doesn’t matter. You can come to work in a restaurant like this. You can provide for your kids.

You can have benefits, insurance, your family can be on insurance. And then what happens is they can stay longer. They can be with you. They can have growth with you. And that positively affects the guests.

Anthony Codispoti (44:48)
You’ve got less turnover, you’ve got better employees, and that just leads to better customer experience.

Bobby (44:54)
You know,

I will say, and this is not a knock on the current Z generation, not a knock, just an observation. It is interesting. Sometimes it takes me a while to wake up, but it really dawned on me recently because I’ll sit down to mentor some employees if they’re leaving and stuff. It re and then I started doing some research after I had these experiences with my staff.

is that so many of them are about a half a decade behind on thinking about benefits and the importance because I don’t know how old you are, but I’ve already stated I’m in my mid fifties. When I graduated from high school, you had two choices. You were either immediately off your parents insurance or you were enrolled in college and you got up through there.

So by the time you were 25 years old, even if you couldn’t write an 18 afford insurance, you and your peer group talked about those things. You and your peer group might look for a job that has those. Now it’s not even, they don’t have to think about it.

And I think it holds them back at looking at compensation packages.

Anthony Codispoti (46:24)
as they’re moving on to another opportunity, this isn’t something that’s really on their radar. They’re thinking, how much am I gonna make per hour? Do I get any paid time off? Like those kinds of things. The benefits just, you’re saying in your experience just hasn’t been part of the vocabulary.

Bobby (46:29)
Why?

No, we have a thing where employees can put in ideas to ownership. And I had a young person.

say, hey, why don’t we get rid of the benefits?

and just give us more PTO.

And I was like, you know, you got to listen. Everyone’s idea is important, but maybe they didn’t know what they were saying. Yes, they’re 23 years old. They don’t have to worry about benefits.

They’re on their parents’ insurance.

Anthony Codispoti (47:19)
And they’re probably pretty healthy. Yeah.

Bobby (47:21)
Yes,

but then I’m really lucky that I have employees that are raising three kids, four kids with us. They hear that and they’re like, what are you talking about?

Anthony Codispoti (47:35)
different perspectives.

Bobby (47:36)
And they’re both great human beings. But because of what we did with that safety net, it has given us ⁓ young adults that haven’t thought about that yet. And I think they’re a little, they’re about a half a decade behind thinking about it.

Anthony Codispoti (47:57)
As the hospitality landscape continues to evolve, what do you envision as the next frontier for Fresco Hospitality Group?

Bobby (48:06)
The next frontier for us. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (48:11)
more locations of the same concepts, new concepts, taking your same concepts, refining them.

Bobby (48:17)
You know, I personally don’t enjoy growth at all, ⁓ but I learned that I was really selfish. So if you look at the first six years of Frasca, no other restaurants, it was very successful. It was doing its thing. We didn’t expand. Then we opened up a little pizzeria next door to us and we did that for 13 years. My business partners were like, Bobby, you’re so selfish.

And I’m like, what? I mean, that’s kind of rude. I’m like, why? And they’re like, well, if we don’t grow and you’re the GM of Froska for the next 50 years, no one gets to move up.

And then I started thinking about this. And then I started thinking about how wrong our whole system is. Cause food journalists write, ⁓ I hate that they’ve expanded. wish it was just one restaurant. The whole system is selfish and not thinking about the employees growth. So I never want, I would prefer if I never heard a journalist say that.

Because what they don’t realize they’re doing, because it took me a while to figure it out also, is that that’s being selfish. And now that we’ve been able to grow.

People have been able to grow in our company and their lives have become better. I just got done. Peter Hogan, my business partner and I just sat down with one of our leaders in our company talking about growth. They’re coming to us. Where’s my next move? Where is, what can I do in this company? So going back to that original selfishness of mine, I’m not comfortable with growth.

but I have to help lead the team in growth so I can provide opportunities for these great employees that want it. So then we have to say, does it work financially? Is the team ready? Here we go.

Anthony Codispoti (50:33)
And so what growth do you think is on the horizon? Anything that you can give voice to yet?

Bobby (50:38)
I don’t have anything in the hopper right now. We are looking at some opportunities outside of the state of Colorado. I don’t know if they’ll happen, but you know, I’m from Scottsdale, Phoenix area. I would love to have a restaurant down there someday. ⁓ I think there’s some really exciting markets out there, ⁓ we, we’ve something hasn’t landed yet.

Anthony Codispoti (51:04)
Well, we’ll continue to check in. Meanwhile, let’s take a little detour. I want to hear, Bobby, about a serious challenge that you had to overcome, whether it was something personal or professional. How did you get through that and what did you learn?

Bobby (51:20)
Okay. It’s ironic that you’re asking me this today because I just told my business partner this story. So ⁓ I have to collect some like personal pieces for the Julia Child Foundation because I accidentally won the Julia Child Award this year and they’re they’re presenting it in October. It’s like an exhibit at the Smithsonian. So I’ve got to like go through my wife and I on our day off. We had to go through some boxes of like

Anthony Codispoti (51:40)
accidentally.

Bobby (51:50)
some memorabilia of my career. And I found this ruler, like a 12 inch ruler, and it represents both the pain and hardship and what came through that. So I mentioned earlier, we’ve already discussed, I was undiagnosed until college of being dyslexic.

So I’m also from a generation we didn’t know much about this. And I’m not blaming my third grade teacher. I’m just pointing out something that happened. My dad and my granddad before that were in insurance. So I was really proud of my dad. And so I had, my dad used to have these date books that said Stucky Insurance. And he had these rulers and notebooks.

So I had all three all the time. I used those date books until he retired. That’s what I’d write all my training logs in as a runner as a kid. And I would show up at school. I knew I was a struggling kid. So I tried to sit at the front to try to get whatever info. It was third grade and the teacher asked us to write our and this is so how much times have changed. They didn’t ask what your mom did.

They asked, what did your dad do? Right now you would ask, what do your parents do? But they weren’t that sophisticated in 19, whatever that would be, 78. ⁓ Third grade, they’re like, what did your, what did, everyone had to write what their father did for a living. And I got up in front of the class to write insurance and I couldn’t write insurance.

Anthony Codispoti (53:48)
did not spell it.

Bobby (53:50)
I kept having problems in front of the whole class and my teacher not meaning to be a total.

I’m not gonna use the word, but she was like, what’s your problem? Look at your desk. It’s all over your desk. It’s on your ruler. It’s on your date book and it’s on your notebook. Why can’t you write this? And it really hurt my feelings. It like traumatized me. I’ve kept that ruler.

ever since. And so I was like showing my wife that ruler. She’s like, you know, this is great, but maybe we get some therapy about this ruler. You know, she was joking, but she was, wow, that ruler really meant shows that perseverance of as a third grader. And look, I think because of that teacher and

how it was for me as a kid that when I found bussing tables as a young teenager, it really helped me. Because there was something that I was good at that maybe other kids my age weren’t good at. No one in my house knew how to do that. so.

Anthony Codispoti (55:16)
Yeah,

I could see that being a real emotional roller coaster of a moment. I mean, you’re you’re very proud of your dad and his insurance business. You’re excited to get up in front of the class and write insurance this represents, you know, a lot of family pride. And that you struggled in that moment. And it’s you already know that you’re, you know, a struggling student, some things come harder to you you don’t understand why. And now the teacher calls you out in front of everybody. It’s one thing for you know, her to

belittling you one-on-one, that’s enough, but now to do it in front of all your friends and your classmates, that leaves its mark. And so what do you do with this ruler now? Is this going in the exhibit?

Bobby (55:57)
I don’t know, I gotta ask my team if that should go in the exhibit or should it stay at my desk. Because it’s like, it’s so my career, that ruler.

Anthony Codispoti (56:06)
Yeah,

yeah. And there’s a lot encompassed in that. And so you sort of glossed over, say I accidentally won the Julia Childs Award. What is this award and how did you accidentally win it?

Bobby (56:19)
Well, I don’t know how I won it, so that’s why it’s an accident. The Julia Child Foundation, and I’m lucky enough to be of the age that I got to take care of Julia Child, both at the French Laundry and the Little Now, and my mom was a incredible fan of Julia Child. Her foundation, which is based in Santa Barbara where she lived, has a award.

once year, the Julia Child Foundation Award for people in excellence in the culinary arts. And I got a call this May, it was May, ⁓ saying, hey, you’ve been nominated for this and you have won this. And so the award ceremony will be in October in Napa and it’ll be ⁓ beautiful. ⁓

They asked me to have a mentor there. So Thomas and Laura from the French Wanderer are gonna present me. And then I’m gonna present, you know, I’m gonna have one of my mentees, someone who came from our organization that has gone on to great things, Grant Reynolds, who literally grew up in our restaurant and now has multiple restaurants in New York City. Parcel ⁓ and Parcel Wine Company have him there. It’s gonna be wonderful.

Anthony Codispoti (57:44)
Tell us about your wine label, Scorpetta.

Bobby (57:46)
Yeah, we started that about, well, over an open 21 years. So we started that 19 years ago when we opened, as I was joking earlier, that no one knew where Friuli was. ⁓ It was really hard to write a wine list of Friulano wines 21 years ago, especially by the glass.

When you write a wine list by the glass, let’s say you’re a 60 seat restaurant and you’re so young, block, or in our case, you’re free, a lot of that for idle. You probably need two cases a week. Probably need a hundred cases a year.

Well, there weren’t two cases a week to even get through the month of Friolano in Colorado 21 years ago. The importers didn’t keep enough of that on stock. And so we tried to at first go to freely to some of our friends and say, Hey, can we make a hundred cases? Figure, you got a couple of real quiet weeks in January. So you got 50 weeks, two cases. We need a hundred cases of Friolano.

And that’s how Scarpa had us started. It wasn’t meant to be in all 50 states. It was meant to develop, to come up with some great wine by the glass options for Frosk of Food and Wine, this Friolano, newish Friolano restaurant. And then it has grown. My business partner, Lachlan, he really runs the company now and gets all the credit for how much it’s grown. It’s in all 50 states.

We have a small importing company called Benvenusa that’s kind of dovetails in there. Because at the same time that we were developing Scarpetta, we were out there helping Friolano families find the importation into the US, because we needed them here. And after doing that for 18 years, and now that Scarpetta is robust enough with a sales team and all that, we have about…

know, a few producers that we bring in from Frigoli and one from Chianti Classica.

Anthony Codispoti (59:52)
Wow, that’s incredible. That growth that you saw just from trying to get a few cases of wine a week that you guys could use yourself. ⁓ one more question for you, Bobby today, but before I ask it, I want to do two things. First of all, everyone listening pause for just a second, go to your podcast app that you’re listening on right now. Go ahead and leave us a comment, like us share, follow, subscribe. Not only does it help make sure that you get more great interviews like this in your feed, but it helps others find the show too.

Bobby, I want to let people know the best way either to get in touch with you personally to follow your story or to get in touch with your restaurant group. What would that be?

Bobby (1:00:30)
Yeah, the best way would just email me to the info account at info at Froska food and wine.com. So that’s the first restaurant is called Froska food and wine. And that is the name of the whole hospitality group, Froska hospitality group. And you can go there or if you’re in Denver, you can go to one of our restaurants there, Sunday vinyl, Tabernetta, Osri Albrico. But you know, you could just go to the info account, send me an email.

Anthony Codispoti (1:00:57)
We will include links to the email and the website in our show notes for everybody. So last question for you, Bobby. You and I reconnect a year from now and you’re celebrating something big. What’s that one thing you’re celebrating?

Bobby (1:01:09)
A year from now.

Hmm. One year from now, I hope I’m celebrating some more staff members, kids going to college.

So I am a huge advocate of

universities that specifically try to help first generation college students. It’s a big passion of mine. So if I do public speaking, there’s a fee for me to public speak. And when my team sends the email to engage, that fee shows right off the top that this first 25 % of it goes to this scholarship fund.

The, the, for, I went to a university called Northern Arizona university in Flagstaff, Arizona. And that school is really focused and I really commend them on first generation college students. have a very ambitious goal to have a very high percentage, like 40 % first gen really big ask. So I get really excited when last week school started.

And I saw one of my employees get emotional, the right emotion, that their daughter or son was going to college.

Anthony Codispoti (1:02:52)
Love it. Bobby Stuckey from Fresco Hospitality Group. I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Bobby (1:03:00)
Thank you, Anthony. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

Anthony Codispoti (1:03:04)
Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.