Toulouse: from 1 to 14 restaurants, comment on this pizza maker has patiently built his galaxy
After opening his first restaurant in Blagnac 25 years ago, the Italian pizza maker has created a veritable galaxy, in Toulouse and even elsewhere in the region. With a fixed idea: the customer must feel like among friends.
Mongelli, you know? In the jungle of Toulouse pizzerias, the sign of this just sixty-something man stands out, in gold letters on a black background. Sobriety. Elegance. The man is up to it.
From his experience at Club Med in the 1980s, Pinin Mongelli retained a principle: a happy customer is a returning customer…
“You have to be human, and things fall into place…”
“In my first restaurant in Toulouse, I worked with my wife, it was hypertensive. A client arrives, she hadn’t called. I was stressed, but I’m making him his pizza. On the way out, it was raining, she stumbles and her pizza crashes to the floor. I tell my daughter who was 10, go get her. I made him his pizza again…”
Twenty-four years later, the lady is still a client, and has brought back a few clients since that rainy day in 1998… “You have to be human, and things fall into place…”
14 restaurants, and two to come this year, place de la Trinité in Toulouse, and in Quint-Fonsegrives
After opening his first Toulouse restaurant in Blagnac, Pinin-Giuseppe Mongelli is now at the head of a galaxy of 14 establishments. Eleven in the Toulouse conurbation, two in Montpellier, one in Narbonne.
A success for this globetrotter, who first had a restaurant in Italy for nearly fifteen years, before arriving in France with his wife from Toulouse. It was in 2015 that the idea of setting up his franchise materialized. Its restaurants are linked, it’s time to expand.
Three months of internship for franchisees, and common benchmarks: oven, decoration, flour, menu…
“For years I kept two or three restaurants. From 2015, we moved up a gear”. A company takes care of finding a location, financing, management, through professionals. Today, projects are reaching maturity, in Toulouse, place de la Trinité, and in Quint-Fonsegrives. Marseille and Bordeaux are in sight.
Franchisees are accompanied. In addition to the three months of internships, candidates pay franchise fees. What do the restaurants have in common? Same rotary wood-fired oven and the same decor. “It’s the combination of wood, the elegance of dark colors and the shine of gold. I owe it to my daughter.”
A flour in “sustainable agriculture” instead of Italy
Today, the whole family is involved in the SME Mongelli, the two daughters, the genre. The recipe for success ? “Customers can do without pizza. What they are looking for is a moment of pleasure. When he arrives, the customer must feel good, like visiting friends. »
And the secret of his pizza, which brought him a title of world champion, in 2010? “Floors from Italy, organic, ground in the traditional way by millers. The dough must be mixed in a certain way and must rise in a very specific time frame. »
Even today, the “mix” of special Mongelli flour, Pinin brings it from Italy, in sustainable agriculture. “I want to make healthy pizzas, with flour that is not full of pesticides and preservatives, as is unfortunately too often the case elsewhere”.
A childhood in Puglia in Italy, and a world tour to Toulouse…
Pinin Mongelli was literally born in pizza in the early sixties in Martano, in Italian Puglia. “I have kept the smell of Neapolitan pizza from my childhood. She woke me up when my father came. I still smell the anchovies, the olives, the capers. »
At only 16, the young Pinin left Italy. “I worked in Greece, Mexico, the West Indies, the United States. The real turning point in his life occurs in Martinique, when he meets his future wife. “I would never have arrived in Toulouse, here it has become my home…”