It’s an inspirational scene. A couple of friends are sitting around a kitchen table, sleeves rolled up, slurping coffee and furiously scribbling million-dollar ideas onto a napkin. This, at least in Hollywood, is how business plans are born. Chances are, however, that most schemes conceived at midnight eureka sessions no longer exist. Some impulsive entrepreneurial ideas lead short lives. Others evolve into reconstructed business models – possibly successful, possibly not. (more…)
Highway 2 begins, appropriately, in a hamlet called Carway on the Alberta-Montana border. U.S. Route 89 ends and the spine of this province heads north, through towns such as Cardston and Fort Macleod, through the Calgary-Edmonton corridor, on to Athasbasca, where it veers west and, skirting the southern shores of Lesser Slave Lake, fishhooks into Peace Country and enters the final leg between Grande Prairie and British Columbia.
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Born near Naples, Carmelo Rago came to Canada as a 10-year-old boy to reunite with his father who had moved earlier. The Rago family owned a flour mill in Italy and were doing well, but Carmelo’s dad wanted independence and some distance from his strict father. So he left his wife and two boys in Italy and struck out for the New World, in this case Edmonton.
by Janice Paskey
Carmelo Rago felt the same pull for freedom when he left for Eastern Illinois University in Charleston on a soccer scholarship, then returned to become a teacher in Edmonton. A family decision to buy a restaurant in receivership led him into his current business. When Sorrento restaurant continued to lose money, Rago bought out family members, rebranded to Sorrentino’s, and expanded to eight locations. Carmelo Rago and his wife Stella have four boys; the eldest runs one of the Edmonton locations.
AV: Do you wake up thinking, I’d like a nice shrimp scampi?
A: [laughs] We were one of the first ones to have scampi on the menu.
What’s your idea of the best Italian food?
I go back to my favourites when I was a kid in Italy, tomato sauce and linguini.
What are the most popular dishes at Sorrentino’s?
Overall, it’s Cannelloni, followed by Penne Mediterranie made with carmelized sundried tomatoes and goat cheese.
Travel brought changes to your menu.
Yes, I learned Italian food was more than what I knew. We brought in pesto and people would say, “What’s this, can you add cream?” We added cream and then someone else would come in and say, “What’s this, this is not a pesto dish.”
So how does a physical education teacher become a restaurateur?
I was dating my wife. I had to go and pick up some money from a restaurant closing for my father-in-law [who sold food]. One of the relatives told me that I should get into the restaurant business. What did I know? I was a teacher.
The family wanted to sell after a year.
I told them I wanted to stay in. My father- in-law [Maurizio Saccomanno] said, “You’re a teacher, You don’t know anything about the restaurant business, you’ve never worked a day in your life.” I was naïve about the business.
What was the low point?
Best example I can give you: One day our pizza delivery guy didn’t show up, so I stepped in. It was cold and I couldn’t find the street addresses. I fell in down in the snow. And that’s when I asked myself what I was doing delivering pizzas. I’m a teacher. I could have just gone to my father-in-law and told him that I didn’t want to do it anymore.
What encouraged you to stay on?
I looked back and remembered hearing family stories from my father and grandfather about work ethics.
Your family thought you were too shy for the restaurant business.
At my restaurants I’m not shy. This is my house. When customers arrive, I shake their hands and take care of them.
You have eight restaurants. Who are your competitors?
I just focus on us. You have to be there all the time.
Do you have plans to expand?
No. It’s been difficult to find the right people. I think right now it would be wise if we put expansion plans on hold. We make our food from scratch. When staff shortages happen, we’re the first to get hit in fine dining.
What’s the hardest job to fill?
Dishwashers. No one wants to wash dishes.
But you have café plans.
We’re opened Caffe Sorrentino in Edmonton. It’s very European. It’s easy to run, doesn’t require as many people. We’re looking at franchising it. The coffee is awesome.
What’s most satisfying about your line of business?
For me it’s when we started opening more restaurants. But now, we’re getting more involved with the community, we have Sorrentino’s Compassion House, a house for ladies who come from outside Edmonton for breast cancer treatment. It’s very special for us.
Ryan Jackson
President, Canopy Canada
As a child in Swift Current, Sask., Ryan Jackson learned from his car-dealer father that selling automobiles was a good way to make a living.
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Albertans have a reputation for risk-taking, but is it justified?
By Rick Spence
It’s almost become gospel that Alberta is Canada’s entrepreneurial heartland. Where Ontario seems to be all about real estate and tax lawyers and Quebec Inc., a cabal of crony capital, where Atlantic Canada seems happy to be a bedroom community for Fort McMurray and B.C.’s out smoking behind the barn, Alberta is still seen as can-do country, the last best home of rolled-up sleeves and rugged individualism. (more…)
Jill Kelland
Manager, social and vocational programs, Regional Mental Health , Capital Health
Being an entrepreneur in Alberta is no big deal. Bringing entrepreneurial business strategies into a big-city health authority and making them work with clients is.
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Holly Pshyk
Sales Manager, Wholesale division, Rocky Mountain Soap Company Inc.
Don’t tell the folks at Rocky Mountain Soap that offering flexible working hours invites sloth. Their star sales manager, Holly Pshyk, has helped raise the Canmore-based natural soap and bath product maker’s revenues to $2.5 million from $86,000 in five years, working from home in Edmonton between her mom duties to two children.
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Though they do different things, Alberta’s fastest-growing companies offer a similar recipe for preparing for, managing and sustaining growth: match the right product to a big market, and find the right people to pull it off
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The prospect of a mid-life career switch may seem daunting, but it can be a rewarding experience. And there are ways to ease the transition
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Test your Entrepreneurial Quotient against some of Alberta’s best-known business leaders
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