By: Michelle Bryant- as told by Jennifer Conlon
Like most Italians, Jen comes from a large family and is one of five children. With 27 cousins on her mother’s side of the family alone, Jen recalls at any given time there were often loads of people sitting around the always-large table for a meal. Jen recalls: “If my mother wasn’t feeding one of my cousins, she was feeding neighborhood friends. Plus, being in the kitchen was more common for us than sitting around the television.” Her mother’s family is from the Italian section of Brooklyn, New York, but Jen holds most of her childhood and adolescent memories in Middleton.
Jen remembers holidays were always the best growing up at her parents’ house. “It took hours for that many people to open gifts and, of course, eating all day long,” she says smiling. Jen has always been a cook. Truth is, she has been cooking since she could reach a stovetop. Standing alongside her mother and grandmother, at a very early age, she learned all the ins and outs of what it took to create the perfect Italian meal. In fact, Jen was making meatballs at just 10 years old.
With a passion and love for food and cooking, Jen worked her young-adult years at various restaurants as a server and eventually through hands-on training and coaching was able to realize her love and passion for the entire aspect of running a restaurant business. Jen took that drive and motivation and put herself through cooking school in Orange County, New York, and won several awards in national and regional cooking competitions and contests.
After getting married and having children of her own, stay-at-home mom Jen made the decision to start her own catering company and create dinners and meals for local churches and several friends’ parties. Raising her children and running her business on the side for more than 20 years, she and her husband decided a warmer climate, softer cost of living and different change of pace might be a productive move for them and their children.
Moving to Charleston 10 years ago with her husband and three children, Jen took her experience as a server and landed a job in a local Italian restaurant in Summerville. Her love and knowledge of Italian cuisine eventually promoted her to a manager position where she worked for two years. It was that little restaurant where she discovered her love was not just managing a restaurant business but actually cooking and creating delicious Italian dishes and desserts.
She also started a meet-up group and catering business called “Jenny’s Simple Sassy Italian Dishes,” which entailed going to different restaurants and offering cooking demos to customers and teaching simple dishes to make at home. As well, her catering provided services to businesses in the local area with regular clients such as Boeing, MUSC and Bosch.
Additionally, taking the knowledge from her mother and grandmother in her upbringing, along with her cooking-school experience, she was taught by Eduardo Sorrenti, originally from Naples, Italy. He owned several restaurants in New York. “I give him credit for everything I know,” Jen says.
The Summerville restaurant closed for business, and Jen was offered a server position at another local Italian restaurant. Quickly she worked her way up from server to manager and was eventually offered the opportunity to purchase the company and take over the operations. Her son Tom has worked with Jen at several different Italian restaurants and shares in her love for the industry and has the flare for Italian cooking, so it only seemed appropriate that Jen would employ him as her cook once she took ownership.
Her two daughters have never had a desire to follow in mom’s restaurant owning footsteps but love to cook on a personal, private level and do help out at the restaurant when needed. Tom, on the other hand—because he loves to cook—originally agreed to be Jen’s official cook and copartner. In fact, it was Tom who stepped forward and gave Jen the initial funds she needed to purchase the restaurant. Seeking advice from friends, family and especially her friend Domenico in Italy, Jen decided to pursue her dream of owning her own Italian restaurant. So on September 12, 2015, Jen closed on the purchase of the sale and became an official restaurant owner.
After the papers were signed, Jen looked around, and although she should have felt excited she was overwhelmed. Jen’s new beginning started with only a Budweiser beer in the walk-in cooler, a negative balance in the checking account of $38 and a can of Hunt’s tomato paste left on the shelf. Tom comforted his mother and called friend Carmine Cannavo at Ferraro Foods who personally paid for their first shipment of food and supplies. Tom, in his early twenties, is not only the chef and pizza cook for his mother but has responsibilities as co-owner of the restaurant. He and Jen make all the decisions together. They truly are partners in this endeavor. Originally taught by Massimo Esposito on how to make pizzas, Tom continued his education and participated in Trident’s three-year culinary program.
However, most of the recipes he knows are from his mother, his grandmother and great-grandmother. Although Tom feels more comfortable in the back of the house, his passion and thrill for cooking speak loud and clear to the guests who dine at their restaurant. As well, his mother would be lost without him and states with pride, “I couldn’t do this without him.” They are truly a unique pair in this business not only as a mother/son team, but each of them have their own strengths that balance the other and makes for a beautiful end result. Two days later, on September 14, Tom and Jen officially opened their doors for business, changing the sign on the building to Amici’s, which in Italian means “friends.” “I could not have done any of this without my friends,” Jen says. “I want people to come here and know that they are my friends and know that they can gather around the table and be treated as such.”
Through Amici’s, Jen gives back in various ways. She hosts interactive cooking classes with wine tasting once a month for $20, providing recipes and hands-on instructions for making delicious dishes such as: spinach manicotti and risotto, biscotti and tiramisu. Jen also collaborates with the Citadel hockey team and hosts their alumni dinner when they play at the nearby Ice Palace. She offers Italian language classes and is host for Il Tavolo Italiano. In fact, the music teacher from Porter-Gaud School for the Arts who provided the entrainment and an accompanying pianist for the grand opening in November has since contacted Jen requesting the school use the restaurant to put on their musical dinner. With a medieval theme the students sang and played piano in costume, and Tom created and provided a special medieval dinner for the more than 100 attendees and their parents.
At Amici’s you are among friends. You feel it when you walk in the door. You taste it when you savor many of the same recipes Jen’s grandmother taught her to make as a child, especially in the marinara sauce. At Amici’s, the secret ingredient REALLY is love.