All’s beautiful in Seattle’s TUTTA BELLA with CEO / Founder Joe Fugere
TUTTA BELLA, Seattle’s first Neapolitan pizzeria, was founded on an idea and a journey. Established 18 years ago by CEO/Founder Joe Fugere, TUTTA BELLA is also the city’s first to be awarded the VPN Verace Pizza Napoletana (“true Neapolitan pizza”).
by Sean Jeremy Palmer photos by Tutta Bella Neapolitan Pizzeria
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Now with seven local neighborhood restaurants, Joe also has a retail line--a Costco bestseller-- which is expanding the brand’s reach and fueling the business with explosive growth. Amidst his busy schedule, Joe joined CW Magazine to speak about the genesis of his company and the trials and travails of entrepreneurship.
I know about TUTTA BELLA’s Naples history, but walk me through your path. I’d love to hear it in your words. The genesis of the company had more to do with me going through that time in my life where I wanted to do something meaningful. I was working for a big coffee company that has a mermaid in their logo. And, you know, it’s a great company. But I just felt – I don’t want to call them golden handcuffs, but, you have a good job, things are going well, and you start to evaluate your life. I was in my 40s. And I just felt like I wanted something more meaningful. So I decided to leave my job and start my own company, one where I could set the values, determine the direction of how our employees and vendors are treated, and how we engage with the community. I set off. I was reading a book, I might get the title wrong – somebody gave it to me, called ‘Zen and the Art of Making a Living’. And I took some time off and I did some soul searching. Then I came across a former boss. She was starting a professional coaching business and asked if I would be her first guinea pig client. We
went on this great journey together where she had me list all the things that I’m good at, the things that I would love to do and dream about. And you know, essentially she sent me off on a mission to see if all those things that I love and dream about could become a career for me. In the back of my head I thought the restaurant business is the last thing I want to be involved with because of the high turnover and burnout – I thought, I’ve been doing that all my life. And so I looked into nonprofit work, travel, architecture, design, other culinary opportunities and nonprofit work. And after doing that deep dive, I found out that I really wasn’t qualified to do all those things that I loved. So I came back to my coach, and she’s like, ‘Well, why don’t you just apply all the things that you love to the things that you’re good at, which is running restaurants and I thought, you know, she’s got something there – Now, I knew that if you’re going to be in the business, choose a category where you’re likely to succeed: The two most popular restaurant categories in the world? Pizza and burgers. Burgers didn’t resonate with me, but pizza did. And so I set down this path.
