March 14, 2017

Meet Antonio Bortone of Tony’s at Brentwood in Stockbridge

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Antonio Bortone.

Antonio, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I immigrated to America at the young age and got my love for cooking and making pizzas mostly from working in several Italian restaurants and pizza places on Long Island NY and around NYC. I started at 15 years old and worked on and off until I was 34 years old. By then, I was in the Us Army playing music in their Band program and got orders to go to Germany. While in Germany I visited many countries all over Europe where I had the pleasure to taste original dishes that gave me appreciation for originality in food. In 2002, I came to Atlanta as part of the Army Ground Forces Band, which at the time was still stationed at Fort McPherson GA. Upon my retirement from the Army in 2011, and after noticing a lack of good Italian food in south part of the Atlanta metro area, I decided to embark on a second career and Tony’s at Brentwood was born.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
The first year was tough because we had to come up with a system that would produce the quality food I had in mind. It was also difficult to build the brand and name recognition that would bring people in the restaurant (our location is a little hidden).

We tried advertising in a local newspaper, on TV and on a coupon mailer, but nothing seemed to work well. The turning point came when we started advertising in the “Savvy Shopper” now called “Local Flavor”. Overall, running a restaurant is always going to be tough and most days it’s an adventure; anything can happen. I credit the skills I have learned in my 26 years in the Army to have gotten me this far.

Please tell us about Tony’s at Brentwood.
Tony’s at Brentwood features true NY pizza, including the Sicilian thick square pan pizza and the more famous thin crust hand tossed pizza, learned through my years working in NY from 1978 to 1994, We also have Pizza Napoletana developed from my own research and from my childhood memories. Yes, at 14 years old I had a favorite pizza place that made an outstanding Quattro Stagioni (four seasons) pizza and lastly Tony’s features family recipes like the beef lasagna made from handmade pasta with slices of hard boiled eggs and fresh mozzarella. What I believe that set us apart is how much we offer; takeout, delivery, dine in and catering. We deliver most items on the menu including things like shrimp scampi, chicken Marsala, wings and fresh made to order salads. Tony’s at Brentwood has had tremendous success in the first five years of existence and hope to please many more diners in the future. As a company I’m most proud when I see customers return on a regular basis that lets me know that they appreciate what we are doing.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
At first we were not delivering, and that was OK since we were putting together a system, but I should not have waited a year before starting it. People seem to like get their pizza delivered most of the time. I had one employee that I offered too much money when I first opened and led to me working for free for a while because I could not afford to pay us both. It was hard not knowing how much the restaurant was going to make how much I could afford to pay an experienced cook, but I should have known better in retrospect.

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