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Interview with Ross Morris
Conducted by Edward Manbeck
Piatto: Regional Italian Cuisine, Carlisle, Pa
November 15, 2007
Preface
This interview with Mr. Morris, the owner of Piatto, was conducted for the purpose of exploring the second of the two Italian restaurants located in downtown
Piatto has been a wonderful and unique addition to the downtown
Interview
Mr. Manbeck: Alright, so if you could just give me a kind of overview of how you started Piatto and what your mindset was like to open specifically a more upscale Italian restaurant…
Mr. Morris: Sure, I’ve been here about ten years – this restaurant will be ten years in May – and, I basically wanted to do a restaurant; I looked around at the ideas that I could do, and what was not being represented, and thought Italian would be the way to go. One, I just really admire how they eat. I mean they eat a very healthful diet. It goes with the seasons, usually it’s locally purchased produce and food items, and we do that whenever we can. So those were all the attractions for me, and what we tried to do when we set out, what we wanted to do was just like
Mr. Manbeck: You’ve seen that Starbucks is coming to town?
Mr. Morris: I did see that. Ah, mixed blessings, like I think, certainly your generation grew up with Starbucks, that’s pretty much all you know in the coffee world. Personally, what I think they’re selling is milk with burnt coffee flavor added. I have yet to find any of their products that I like. It’s all over roasted coffee in my opinion, like espresso’s about as dark as I like to go, French roast is fine if your in France and they’re making café L.A., it tastes great, believe me, but what Starbucks is doing is way off course. But I admire the culture that they’ve developed, and they certainly have a good business model. It’s one of the last good places to work in
Mr. Manbeck: Well Starbucks is going pretty close to them, right?
Mr. Morris: It’s right in the middle. I think they’ll [Casa Mani and
Mr. Manbeck: I know one of the big things with the downtown is kind of how to merge the
Mr. Morris: That’ll get you guys [
Mr. Manbeck: When did you come to
Mr. Morris: Like thirty years ago, ’77, right out of college.
Mr. Manbeck: Alright, so you feel as though you’ve found a niche here? You know, if you look at downtown, a lot of the stores have their own niche, and that’s how they make it in competing against the big stores.
Mr. Morris: True. You know, you figure that Wal-Mart and all those guys have big-boxed
Mr. Manbeck: Where do you see it headed?
Mr. Morris: Well, I think
Mr. Manbeck: Right, it seems like everything is basically closed after six or seven o’clock.
Mr. Morris: My daughter goes to school in Doylestown (Pa), up in
Mr. Manbeck: But you see
Mr. Morris: Yes, it’s heading there now. I’ve been here long enough to watch the whole thing up and down. When you hit bottom, it’s like there’s nowhere to go but up.
Mr. Manbeck: Now have there been any restaurants like this [Piatto], like a nicer Italian restaurant in town?
Mr. Morris: Not Italian, no. You were saying yesterday, I think your original idea was the Italian restaurant history in this town. As far as I know, the Rillos were the first family to come in and do that, and I think that was in the early sixties when they started. [ed’s note: Rillo’s is in
Mr. Manbeck: Like the
Mr. Morris: Yes, because they all came from one place. I don’t know if you know who Bill Castopolis (spelling) is, but he’s a pretty famous attorney in the area, and his family, it now has the North Hanover Grille, I can’t remember the name of the place. Anyhow, they sold hot dogs and you can trust every Greek restaurateur in
Mr. Manbeck: Speaking of California Café, would you speak a little bit about what’s going on here on
Mr. Morris: Yep, it does, it’s cool. My neighbor, Pat Craig, is largely responsible for that. She’s the mistress of promotion. She knows how to get attention from anybody anywhere, and you should talk to her if you have time and you want to stretch this out a bit, but she’s a character. And, yes, she’s responsible for getting this whole block organized, and we actually have a non-profit group where we actually pool money and energy, and we advertise and market ourselves. I think
Mr. Manbeck: Do you think that the vision of all the business owners in town is pretty similar? As far as in the direction they want to go?
Mr. Morris: Yes, everybody wants to go in the same direction, and the people that are here, the players that are here now are all in a very cooperative mode. Like even my competitors, I know them all, and we like each other and we’ll send each other business. Nobody bad mouths anybody in town; its pretty cool, it’s actually like we’re all friendly competitors. You know, I love having the café down the street because we’re a small restaurant, we fill up, and you have to send them [patrons somewhere]. I don’t want to send them to a chain. That’s what’s really changed in the restaurant industry in
Mr. Manbeck: How would you say, granted there’s not a restaurant like this right in this area, but how would you say the Applebee’s area and the Target shopping center, basically all the chains in the area, have affected the downtown area in general, not just Piatto, if at all?
Mr. Morris: My take on it is this. Twenty-five years ago Wal-Mart was talking about coming to
Mr. Manbeck: This was twenty-five years ago, really?
Mr. Morris: Yes, and they fought it, and they actually kept them out. And I think they shot themselves in the foot because they [Wal-Mart] opened up in Mechanicsburg and everyone in Carlisle went to Mechanicsburg to shop at Wal-Mart, so all of the other money that they would have spent got spent in that area. Whereas, if they were smart, what they would have said was sure, put yourselves out here. But what I think is going to happen, I think in five years you’ll have Carlisle, which will be surrounded by these big box retailers, which is where America is, and it’s a fact of life, you need them, but in the end we’re going to have this funky little downtown that’s full of vibrant little shops that nobody else has. So we’re going to be surrounded by these big boxes and they are actually going to drive traffic in a way that no other small town could get traffic, that’s my theory, that’s what I would like to see. I think it’s heading there because already you can see there are people coming to Carlisle that might not have come before to shop at these stores and they either drive through the downtown, or by it, or they become aware of it, and the more we have to offer them, the more likely they might be to stop.
Mr. Manbeck: Before the interview we were talking about the car show and how they offer these shuttles that now mostly take the people from the fairgrounds to the Wal-Mart shopping center, essentially bypassing the downtown. As an example, I know that Matty from Matty’s Kitchen said that he doesn’t see any increase in business when the car show is in town. Now maybe his situation is a bit unique considering he’s normally only open for lunch, but what are your thoughts on the impact of the car show?
Mr. Morris: They’ve tried over the years, they’ve tried doing some downtown, but honestly, what is there downtown to offer these people to do? And, there’s a couple stores, but it’s not like taking them to one of the malls where they’ve got hours to kill. Car shows used to be really bad in that either the locals would either leave town or stay home because they knew the town was flooded with a couple hundred thousand people and it would actually put business down. It’s actually gotten better over the years. They’ve learned to manage the traffic really well and we benefit mostly from the specialty, like the niche shows, like the corvette show and the ones where people obviously have money to blow, not like the Chrysler show or the big ones where it’s just a big junkyard out there. Have you ever been to a car show?
Mr. Manbeck: A few small ones with my Dad, but nothing like the ones out here.
Mr. Morris: [laughs] They’re pretty cool. You should check it out sometime. There’s nothing like it anywhere in
Mr. Manbeck: Now is that just money from business owners?
Mr. Morris: And residential. It all depends, it’s based on location. If you’re like a landlord downtown and you have properties downtown, you’re going to have to kick in some extra money, but that’s going to be interesting to see. What year are you?
Mr. Manbeck: A senior.
Mr. Morris: Okay, you won’t see it. [laughs] But it’ll happen sometime in the next two years.
Mr. Manbeck: I’ll be back for alumni weekend.
Mr. Morris: There you go. You might see it, and actually, yes, if you come back a year at a time you’ll probably see the downtown grow in bits and pieces here and there.
Mr. Manbeck: Right now Subway is really the only chain in the downtown, do you think that Starbucks coming to the downtown will lure more chains?
Mr. Morris: Most chains won’t touch a downtown. It’s a good question, I haven’t seen much of it. Usually downtowns are left to the independents, a lot of time there just isn’t enough space for a chain to come downtown. Although as the economy shrinks, they’ll build smaller footprint stores. That might happen. I don’t know what’s going to happen next year. The economy is getting really weird and everything could shake out. Like you mentioned Applebee’s, that segment is really hurting right now; they’re having one of their worst years. That whole market segment, I think they’ve crowded themselves out a good bit. Their clientele is right in that middle ground, and as soon as the economy goes south, they trade down; they’ll actually go to a quick serve [fast food restaurant] as opposed to staying at an Applebee’s [slightly more expensive compared to fast food]. So, it’ll be interesting to watch. There’s a whole lot that’s going to shake out next year. Hope I’m still here to talk about it. [laughs]
Mr. Manbeck: Alright, say a new business is going to start up in downtown Carlisle, how conscious would you say they are of catering not only to the Carlisle community and the surrounding area, but also the
Mr. Morris: Well if they’re smart, they will definitely be aware. Because the thing that makes this town work is all of those groups you just described. You couldn’t do it without the college, the war college, without the law school. That’s part of what makes it demographically interesting, and yes, you have to appeal, you don’t want to alienate any of those guys. It’s like being a politician, everybody’s like, well, put up the political signs. But for why, do you want me to piss off the other guy? You know, the other half of people who don’t agree with that guy. No way.
Mr. Manbeck: Alright I don’t want to take too much more of your time, but do you have any final thoughts on the downtown and the direction you see it heading?
Mr. Morris: Well it’s definitely on the way up, and now it’s just a question of how many people are going to get on board. Because it’s going to take a lot of ground roots effort to make this whole thing fly. It’s going to take a lot of work, but it’s headed there, we’re getting there. How about you? What’s next for you?
Mr. Manbeck: What’s next for me? Well I’m really not sure yet. I’m looking into spending a year in
Mr. Morris: Okay, that’s a cool town.
Mr. Manbeck: Yeah. [laughs] You ever been there?
Mr. Morris: Yes, I was there this summer. I just stopped over; I was there for forty-eight hours. I swear to God I did everything there was to do in
Mr. Manbeck: So expensive though.
Mr. Morris: It is, what is it, like two to one now? Well more than that.
Mr. Manbeck: I think its forty-two cents to the pound.
Mr. Morris: That’s bad; it was fifty cents when I was there.
Mr. Manbeck: I was over there about two and a half years ago; the basketball team took a trip to
Mr. Morris: Where did you stay in
Mr. Manbeck: I really can’t remember.
Mr. Morris: You weren’t at the Erring (spelling) House were you?
Mr. Manbeck: No.
Mr. Morris: There’s a
Mr. Manbeck: That’s pretty neat. I’m thinking of applying to a program that offers a twelve month internship with a number of the big world banks. They provide housing and everything, so it’s pretty cool.
Mr. Morris: Man, all banking is going to be world banking before long. They’ll have to be.
Mr. Manbeck: So just one more final thought. You see Piatto doing well for a long time here?
Mr. Morris: I do, if you look at my history, I’ve been at this nineteen years, and my graph looks like this [shows a gradual incline], it’s just a nice steady incline. You know, a lot of restaurants do this thing [shows a jagged graph with highs and lows], and I haven’t done any of that. It’s just nice steady growth, very controlled. It’s good being small. I can control a lot of details that a lot of big places can’t. Hey, it’s been a good ride, and I’m a young guy, I’m only fifty-something, so I’ll be doing this at least another twenty years. I mean, I can’t imagine stopping.
Mr. Manbeck: Have you been pleased with how you’ve done here [Piatto]? Because this is certainly different than a coffee house, so was this a challenge for you, to go from a coffeehouse to an upscale Italian Restaurant?
Mr. Morris: Yes, this was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, just because, well it goes like this. It’s the simplest cuisine I’ve ever done, but it’s the hardest because there are only two things you’re working with. Your working with the ingredient and the technique, and you can’t falter on either one; they both have to be flawless. So you have to buy the best stuff you can find and you have to know exactly how to prepare it. So the people that cook here actually have a lot of experience and know what they’re doing, you have to. Unlike a chain where you throw it into the fire or the microwave and say, “hey look what I made.”
Mr. Manbeck: I usually get the lobster ravioli when I’m here.
Mr. Morris: Oh that stuff is great isn’t it.
Mr. Manbeck: How would you describe your clientele?
Mr. Morris: All over the board. The people that seem to appreciate us most are people like yourself that have traveled the world, people that know the difference between mediocre and good food. And Italians are incredibly impressed with this. I never understood this, like Italians come to Carlisle and they bring them here, and it’s like man, if I was in
Mr. Manbeck: You’ve been there recently?
Mr. Morris: I was over there for two weeks this summer and it was absolutely wonderful. They’re eating very, very well. The markets are amazing. About half the time I would taste dishes I had never tasted before I made here and I would just be like, yes, I nailed that, that’s good. And then the other times I would be like, okay, I need to change this, this, and this and I’ve got it.
Mr. Manbeck: So you’ve brought
Mr. Morris: Oh yes, yes, the food’s never been better, than it is right now at this restaurant. (laughs)
Mr. Manbeck: So it’s only going to get better?
Mr. Morris: Yep, it’s only going to get better, so I figure I’ve got a few more trips to go and we’ll have it down.
Mr. Manbeck: Alright, well this has been great, thank you very much for your time and insight and I wish you the best.
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