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Loyal Customer Launches Fundraiser in Bid to Help Debt-Laden Pasadena Restaurant

Published on Tuesday, January 5, 2021 | 2:50 pm
 

The Luciano Family. Photo Courtesy of Luciano Dressing.

When a loyal customer of Luciano’s Ristorante in Pasadena learned the family-owned eatery was planning to close its doors next month after 19 years in business due to pandemic-induced debt, she decided she had to do something.

So Melissa Garcia launched an online fundraiser to try to collect whatever she could to help Luciano’s Ristorante and the family behind it, with which she’d shared countless meals in recent years.

The restaurant, which opened its doors at 117 W. California Blvd. in 2002, recently announced it would be shutting down for good on Feb. 1.

“I’ve been going into this restaurant since we moved to Pasadena in 2013, and we’ve always received great service. The food is always wonderful,” Garcia said.

It was heartbreaking to watch as the pandemic destroyed so many local livelihoods, she said.

“This is a restaurant that’s been open for many years. This was a restaurant that was family-owned and meant for the next generation to take over,” she said. “The son had gone to culinary school and was definitely equipped and did his due diligence to make sure that he was prepared to take it over.

“And now, as we see with so many small businesses, you have people that have spent their lifetime perfecting their craft and putting their blood, sweat and tears — and a lot of times the complete family savings — into their businesses, and now they have nothing.”

Garcia said she wished she could do more.

“I wish that I had the ability to knock on everyone’s door and just ask: ‘Hey, can you donate even $5 to say ‘thank you’ for all the years that (the Luciano’s) serviced us and you put smiles on people’s faces?” she said.

“I know that this won’t save the business, but, hopefully, this will help with the debt,” Garcia said. “I don’t know, it was just something that’s inside me telling me I should try.”

“Pasadena has some of the best, most amazing mom and pop restaurants,” she added. “I’m one person and I know that I can’t help everyone, but this was really the mom and pop restaurant that I would go into the most.”

Luciano’s Ristorante co-owner Cheryl Santoro, who runs the restaurant along with her husband, Luciano, said she was touched by the “amazing” showing of support she’s received from customers.

And while the family doesn’t want to close down the businesses, the back rent alone has placed the business into “major debt.”

“As we all know, it’s been a struggle these last nine months,” she said. The restaurant lost about half of its businesses almost immediately when the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in Southern California.

“So we, at that time, just honed down and had my husband and my son work from that point on for months until they came up with the PPP,” Santoro said of Paycheck Protection Program loans. “We were able to hire back a couple of guys, but we’re never fully coming back to where we were at initially.”

Attempts to work out a solution with the landlord have been unsuccessful, she said.

“We put everything into this. This is my family and my husband and my son. And this was something we wanted to keep going. And from day one, our clients have been loyal,” Santoro said.

“A loyal customer just came in here [and gave] $200, just out of nowhere,” she said. “People are left and right and supporting us, which is so great, but we don’t want to go, either.”

“We’ve always wanted to go somewhere else, too, and get bigger and try to go to that next level,” Santoro said. “I don’t see the light at the end of this tunnel yet.”

Even as elected officials continue mulling additional assistance for businesses, it’s just too late, she said.

“We’re not getting it soon enough. If there’s any bailout happening in the near future, which I’m hearing people say that there may be, you know, I can’t live [on] that maybe, I have to live today. And what I know is I’m in the negative today.”

“I don’t want to throw in the towel,” Garcia said. “I’d like to stay, but we’re in a hole. This has probably been the hardest decision, because, what do I do now? I don’t know.”

The fundraiser can be accessed online at https://www.gofundme.com/f/pasadena-supports-luciano-restorante

See also:

Popular Pasadena Restaurant Asking For Help Via GoFundme

Popular El Portal Restaurant Starts GoFundme Campaign As Business Restrictions Hit

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