COMPANY PROFILE
Gourmet
Owners: David Goulart, Robert Spardello, Daniel Teodoro
Type of Business: Restaurant, catering business
Location: 357 Hope St., Providence
Employees: 9
Year founded: 2004
Annual Sales: WND
East Side pizza shop sets itself apart with grilled crusts, fresh toppings
When Gourmet opened its doors on Hope Street in Providence a year and a half ago, it took over a spot that had already been home to several pizza shops.
The restaurant had to differentiate itself not just from its predecessors, but from the countless delivery and by-the-slice pizza places scattered throughout the East Side of Providence. For Gourmet’s owners, the answer was obvious: Offer fresh food with a fresh concept.
David Goulart said he and his two partners pride themselves on serving fresh food – gourmet pizza, pasta, sandwiches and more – of the highest quality, and made almost entirely by hand.
Where most pizza places serve “Wonder Bread” crusts with preservative-filled sauces and toppings, Goulart said, their toppings are fresh, and their crusts thin and grilled.
“What’s the centerpiece of a pizza? The crust,” he said. “It’s what makes it or breaks it 99 percent of the time.”
Patrons can choose their own toppings or order one of several specialty pizzas. In addition, the menu includes items such as fresh penne with chicken and smoked gouda, caprese salad wraps, and potato chips made by hand and available with gorgonzola sauce on the side.
“There’s not a lot of places that you go to and say, ‘Geez, I can’t wait to go back there,’ ” Goulart said. “Most of the time you think you can improve upon it so much – the food could be better, the service could be better. That’s exactly why we keep our food at the quality that it is, and do things a little bit better than the next guy.”
A self-described “foodie,” Goulart has built a career working in restaurants. Nearly 10 years ago, he worked for Atomic Catering – an offshoot of the now-defunct Atomic Grill on Chestnut Street. He also worked at Barnsider’s Mile and a Quarter, a place he calls “Barnsider University” because of what it taught him about the restaurant industry.
In 2004, Goulart partnered with Robert Spardello and Daniel Teodoro to open Gourmet in a storefront on Hope Street, in the same building as Tortilla Flats, across the street from Hope High School.
From the start, Gourmet has offered customers two choices with their pizza: ready to eat, or “take and bake” – a prepared, uncooked pizza on parchment paper that customers can take home and bake to their own liking.
The concept, which in some ways was a catalyst for the restaurant, intrigued Goulart when he first heard about it. It’s a fairly new idea, but it has found success all over the country, he said. For Gourmet, it represents about 50 percent of to-go orders, and now many other pizza shops are copying the concept, Goulart said.
The size of the Hope Street shop and zoning restrictions in the neighborhood limit Gourmet’s potential to expand or add outdoor seating, Goulart said. But the business has found other ways to expand, such as catering and corporate deliveries.
Since starting the services, Goulart said the restaurant has catered everything from posh East Side parties, to school fund-raisers. Later this month, Gourmet will have a concession stand at Gordon School’s annual fund-raising carnival in East Providence.
According to Goulart, that offer came after the restaurant helped the school with fund raising at last year’s event. The school was so pleased with Gourmet that they asked the restaurant to set up its own stand this year.
Compliments like that bolster the partners’ sense that they’re offering a superior product.
In fact, Goulart said he is so confident that he offers customers the opportunity to get a full refund if they are displeased with the product.
“If you like somebody else’s pizza better than ours, come back and we’ll give you all of your money back,” he said.
So far, Goulart said, no one has taken the restaurant up on the offer.
