For Joseph Lapi, owner of Carmella's Wine Bar at Schoen Place in Pittsford, hospitality means more than making customers feel welcome, and it begins with his team. That sentiment shows up in the culture he has built and in how the team looks out for one another, resulting in a genuinely supportive environment.
We spoke with Lapi about the culture he's built and the deep gratitude he holds for his team.
Q: How would you describe the culture you've tried to build among your staff?
A: The word I keep coming back to is hospitality, but internal hospitality, not just the kind we give to guests. The way we take care of each other makes the way we take care of everything else possible. You cannot fake generosity at a four-top if the person standing next to you at the service bar hasn't been kind to you all night. So the culture I'm trying to build, more than anything, is one where our people feel understood, respected, and rooted for by the person next to them. If we get that right, the guest experience becomes almost automatic. If we get it wrong, no amount of training in the world will save the night.
Q: What do you look for when you're hiring: skill, personality, or something else?
A: I hire for a very specific kind of warmth in one’s personality. Skills I can teach. Wine knowledge I can teach. What I can't teach is whether someone genuinely lights up when another human being walks in the room. I've hired people with zero fine-dining experience who ended up being the best hospitalitarians on my floor, and I've hired people with sparkling résumés who couldn't crack a smile. The difference is almost always the same question: Does this person actually enjoy taking care of other people? If yes, we can build everything else together. If not, no title or hourly rate is going to change that.
Q: What's something your staff does that you're genuinely grateful for, even if guests never see it?
A: Honestly, what sticks with me is not one moment. It's the pattern. A family emergency in the middle of a Saturday shift and their teammates quietly are ready to jump in and cover their section before I even know what's happened. A last-minute trip somebody needs to take, and before I know it the schedule is already covered. A rough day for someone that no one else would have picked up on, and a co-worker just quietly taking an extra hand of side work off their plate. Over and over, in ways big and small, our people have chosen to take care of each other, and for that I am eternally grateful. That's the thing that has stuck with me most about this first year: not a single night, but the accumulated evidence that we have built a team that actually shows up for one another. Everything else about a restaurant flows from that.
Q: Is there a moment when your team really showed up for you or for Carmella's—one that still sticks with you?
A: The honest answer is that our staff hasn't just help shaped Carmella's. They ARE Carmella's. Everything guests describe when they talk about this place, the warmth, the feeling of being taken care of, the sense that walking through the door is a little bit like walking into someone's home. None of that is architecture, a wine list, or a logo on a coaster. It's the people. It's the way our host greets a regular by name and a first-timer like she has been waiting for them all night. It's a server dropping to eye level at a table to discuss the menu. It's the cook who plates one more time to get it right and walks it to the table themselves. I didn't design that warmth. I couldn't have. It was created, and it is renewed every single shift by the people who work here. My job is to make sure they know how grateful I am, and in return, they come ready to do battle with me every day!
Q: How do you try to show your appreciation for your team, day to day?
A: As a leader I think you try to notice out loud. The industry standard is to only speak up when something goes wrong; I want to be the opposite of that. When somebody handles a hard table with grace, I want them to hear about it from me before they leave. When somebody comes in early to help set up because we're short, I want to acknowledge it in the moment, not save it for a review. Bigger gestures matter, too. We have a real staff party, we take care of people around holidays, and we mark wins together. But the day-to-day currency of appreciation is attention. If you're paying attention to your team, they can feel it. If you're not, they can feel that too.
Q: What's something small your staff does that makes a bigger difference than they probably realize?
A: I think its the way they take care of each other in the invisible moments. The servers or bartenders who quietly make or bring treats to celebrate their teammates. A dishwasher who runs a stack of clean plates out to the pass without being asked because he can see the line is behind. A chef who catches a teammate about to snap at the end of a double and pulls them aside for two minutes and a laugh. None of that shows up in a guest review. None of it makes the highlight reel. But those thousand small kindnesses are the actual reason the room feels the way it feels. Guests can't name it, but they can feel it. That is Carmella's
Q: How does your team support each other during a rough shift or a hard night?
A: Restaurants are hard, and Carmella's is no exception. Nobody keeps score and I think that is the miracle. The staff that keeps score never lasts. The staff that just picks each other up, over and over, without needing to be thanked—that is the staff you build a restaurant on.
Q: What do you hope your staff takes with them if they ever move on from Carmela's?
A: This is the million dollar question. Lead with hospitality first. The way you make someone feel is the whole game. That excellence and warmth are not opposites but are the same thing done at the same time. That taking care of the people you work with is not soft; it’s the single most competitive advantage a hospitality business will ever have. And whatever their next venture looks like, I will always be there to help if they need it. My hope is that anyone who ever works here will leave with more than they came with. That is the promise I try to make with every hire. If they carry that forward into their next chapter, then Carmella's has done its job, whether they stayed with us for a year or a decade.
"The way we take care of each other makes the way we take care of everything else possible."
"Over and over, in ways big and small, our people have chosen to take care of each other, and for that I am eternally grateful."
"The staff that just picks each other up, over and over, without needing to be thanked—that is the staff you build a restaurant on."